Carry Me Home
by bosswoman88
Summary: Speculation about what happens after Rayna drives away from Luke's ranch that morning...
1. Chapter 1

**Love reading everybody's versions of what they think is going to happen in January….so here's mine! **

**Rayna-**

With tears running down her face and shaking hands, she gets in her truck and drives away from the Copper Meadows Ranch. She doesn't look in the rear view mirror, not even once. Before she knows it, her boot has hit the gas pedal all the way to the floor, every turn of the tires carrying her farther away from what she thought she wanted, and closer to what she needs. Peace. Her girls. _Her_ life. A life that she has made herself on her own, not because she is riding off anyone else's fame or success. Every mile felt like a tiny piece of herself returning.

Tears run down her face, because she thinks she should feel more of something. More pain, more sadness, but all she can feel is relief and guilt. She is relieved because the weight on her shoulders that has grown heavier and heavier over the past few weeks is now gone. She is guilt-ridden because she realizes how foolish it is to not be able to make up your mind about marrying someone until the _morning of the wedding_. She should have ended it weeks ago, but her Wyatt stubbornness kept her believing that the lingering uneasiness plaguing her was something that could be fixed. It was fooling herself, pretending that she could ever find with Luke or any other man something even close to what she'd only had once before. It paled in comparison. It was comfortable, it was sweet, but what it really was…was just another part of a big production. Like being on a stage 24/7 for the rest of her life. Now she loved those stages. But at the end of the night, the curtain had to go down to the audience until tomorrow.

She realizes now that she has never loved Luke quite like she should have, and that is the greatest injustice to him of all, because he deserves better than that. He is a good man, with a good heart, and he deserves someone who is 100% willing to share that stage with him.

She seems to be getting quite good at ruining the men in her life lately.

The miles fly by, bringing her closer to home, and she relives the last 18 hours in her mind.

The girls' song the night before at the rehearsal dinner had been the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, as Rayna sat there with a smile pasted on her face to cover the doubts that had been creeping up all day, and Luke holding her hand.

It was so damn hard not to lose it in that moment, just to grab her girls by the hands and run away from it somewhere quiet and safe and alone, where she could pick them up like she'd done when they were little tiny things, and rock them in her arms, and say "It'll be alright."

Luke tensed up next to her when Maddie announced _"I wrote this song with my dad." _ He always did this thing, Rayna noticed, when Deacon was brought up in any way, like he was trying to interrupt her unconscious thoughts. "They're really special," he said. Yes, they were. But they were hers. Hers and Deacon's. Hers and Teddy's. Not hers and Luke's. Suddenly it seemed so wrong to even try and put him into that equation. And all that talk about boarding school still bothered her. She wondered if Luke had put that idea in their heads on purpose, to get her to agree to extend the tour. But all that was forgotten when the girls started to sing, because all she could hear was Deacon's words come pouring out of their daughter.

_What if I promised it would be alright….It'll be alright…. _

_ Cuz we got a love, ooooohhhh, me and you _

_ We got a will of a tall pine once in a lifetime love, me and you _

_ And I'll hold you close til sun comes out _

_ Baby can you see it now _

_ We got a love _

_ We're as free as a blackbird, true as a good word love _

_ Me and you….. _

_ What do you need that you don't have _

_ What have you lost that you can't get back _

_ What if I promised it'll be alright _

_ We got a candy apple red sweet steady as a heartbeat love _

_ Me and you _

Even now, thinking of those words makes her tears fall faster.

The ring is in the cupholder next to her. She doesn't want to look at it, doesn't want to even touch it, like it might bite her hand if she does. If it wasn't worth a small fortune, she would have tossed it out the window a few miles back.

When she pulls up to the gates of her house, she is stunned to see it's only been an hour, and there's already paparazzi with cameras waiting. Of course there is, she thinks, annoyed. They're waiting to try and get pictures of her in her wedding dress before she leaves for the ceremony. And they are clearly surprised to see her coming and not going.

Inside the house, Tandy is throwing a frantic hissy fit.

"Where have you been?!" She exclaims. "Now I know it's perfectly acceptable to be late for your own wedding, but we only have two hours until the limos get here, and they haven't even started your hair."

Indeed, the "team" is waiting patiently: hair people, makeup people, dress people, all standing awkwardly in her living room.

"You can go," she says to those people without hesitation. "You'll be paid for your time. Thanks for waiting."

Tandy looks confused, and Bucky looks worried.

"What the hell is going on?" Tandy demands.

"Mom?" Daphne slips her hand into her mothers and gazes up at her. "Are you okay?"

It soothes the ache in her heart a little. They know her, her sweet girls, and she has missed so much in the last six months that she can't get back.

"I'm okay," she says reassuredly, softly. "Let's go upstairs and talk, okay?"

They go up the stairs, hand in hand, the three of them.

"Get rid of all these people," she says to Tandy over her shoulder. "There's not going to be a wedding."

"but-."

"No questions right now," she says quietly, firmly. "Just do it, please."

Upstairs she sits with the girls on Maddie's bed, and they look at her worriedly as she explains that her and Luke have decided not to get married.

Maddie tries real hard not to show it, but the shadow of relief that passes over her face is evident.

"Is it our fault?" Daphne asked tentatively. "Because we wanted to go to boarding school?"

"Absolutely not," Rayna says without hesitation. "Luke has a very different life than we do, and our lives just were not going in the same direction. Does that make sense?"

"I guess," Maddie said quietly. "Does that mean we can still be friends with Sage and Colt? Even if they're not family?"

"If it's fine with Luke, it's fine with me."

"Are you sad?" Daphne asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Maybe a little," she admitted. "But you know what? Having the two of you here with me makes everything better."

They sit on Maddie's bed for the rest of the afternoon in a warm comforting heap, leaning on each other, and Rayna listens to her girls tell her about their friends at school, their music lessons, anything they can think of. She absorbs every word.

When she finally leaves them to go downstairs and deal with the aftermath, they look a little less worried, and are excitedly making plans for the next few weeks, since there will be no trip to Australia.

Tandy pounces on her before she even hits the bottom step, takes her by the arm, and leads her away from the "base camp" that has been set up in the living room, into her private office. She points to the couch. "Sit."

Rayna sits, annoyed.

"Well, Bucky and I just spent 3 hours undoing a million dollar wedding," Tandy says. "Is there anything else you'd like to spring on us before the day is over?"

"No, I think one disaster today was enough, don't you?"

Tandy's expression softens a little and she drops on the couch next to her sister. "What happened? You were so happy, so excited."

"I want my life back," she says quietly. "And this…Ruke…Layna…this media circus….you were right. It would never end. I don't want that for my girls."

"Is that all it was?"

"Not exactly," Rayna admits.

"Deacon," Tandy says one word. It is a confirmation, not a question. And for the first time in a long time when they speak of him, Rayna doesn't hear that negativity in her voice.

She doesn't know how to answer that. It's Deacon, but it's not only Deacon. But then again, maybe it's a little more than half Deacon.

Her living room is like a war camp the rest of the afternoon, with Bucky and Tandy running interference on multiple phones and laptops, trying to figure out how to disentangle her from the Un-honeymoon tour, trying to throw the press enough of a bone to go away, trying to put a not so bad spin on it, which was impossible.

It has been 12 hours and the media is still camped out across the front gate like they are waiting for the Queen of England to appear. She doesn't dare even peek out of the curtains, with all those zoom lenses pointed in her direction.

Rayna is a prisoner in her own house.

_We should have just dissolved it after the fact_, Luke had said that morning when she left him standing there with a broken heart. She hadn't realized until she thought about it now how absurd that was. You didn't make a vow before god and the world because it looked good in magazines. And that was the biggest difference between her and Luke. She didn't want her life to be that kind of crazy anymore, for herself or her girls, and he would always thrive on a bigger spotlight.

"I need to get out of here," she says to Bucky, who had a phone in each hand. "Just for a little while."

"I think that's pretty much impossible, Ray," he says apologetically. "They pretty much have you surrounded."

"What are you going to do, scale the neighbor's fence and cut through their backyard?" Tandy jokes, not even looking up from her laptop. "Because that's the only way you'll get away from those cameras."

Rayna's face is determined. "Buck," she says. "Make it happen. "

##########################

**Deacon- **

Deacon opens his door and he doesn't even know why he is surprised to find Rayna standing there. It had been that kind of day. The kind of day where you force yourself to try and accept that everything you ever wanted just slipped away. The kind of day where you leave a hospital with the words "terminal", and "transplant" echoing over and over in your mind like a broken record. The kind of day where any tiniest, sliver of hope you ever had for everything you've ever wanted finally slides away, far out of reach. The kind of day where the love of your life not only marries someone else, but you realize you're never going to walk your daughter down the aisle on your wedding day, or maybe not be around for her next birthday, or to teach her to drive a car, or threaten her prom date.

After he'd slammed the door in Scarlett's face, he'd spent the entire day in his room, staring at the clock. Watching the minutes slip away. He closed his eyes for awhile, and when he awoke, he realized the ceremony would be all over by now. Once again he'd lost her to someone else.

It had been that kind of day. So when he opens the door late that night and finds Rayna standing on his front porch, he doesn't know why he is still shocked as hell.

All he needs right now is a bolt of lightning to come out of the sky and strike him dead where he stands, and this day would just be damn perfect.

"Hi," Rayna says quietly. "Can we talk?"

It makes him remember so many other times she'd stood there, but one in particular stuck out. _I love you, and that is the truth._

He has no idea what their truth is anymore. Fate is so cruel. The doctor's words keep echoing through his mind….._ cancer…liver failure…_Scarlett's angry, tear-eyed plea…._you ain't gonna die_. _Just make the appointment. Please. _

And now Rayna is on his doorstep.

"Well this is a surprise. Figured you would be dancing at your wedding reception by now," he says in a strained tone.

"I guess you haven't turned on the tv all day," Rayna says, with a quiet laugh that suggests she is dangerously near tears. "Boy, if I thought the media coverage was a pain the ass before, it just turned into a nightmare. I had to scale a fence just to get out of my own backyard. Tandy was not amused."

Come to think of it, Deacon realizes as he studies her standing there, she looks like she is a very un-Rayna-like wreck. Her hands are shaking, and her eyes are puffy. And the fact remains that she is standing on his porch in boots and jeans when she should be somewhere drinking champagne and toasting her status as the latest Mrs. Luke Wheeler.

_Oh my god,_ he thinks. _She didn't do it._

"I didn't marry Luke," she says, echoing his thoughts. "Can I come in?" It sounds foreign to her own ears, asking to come in. How many years had they spent just walking into each other's houses. Is she even welcome? They hadn't talked in two weeks, since the night she'd come here to talk about the Rolling Stone article. He'd laid it on the line for her that night, just like he always did_. I love you and that ain't gonna change. _And out of fear she'd walked away, just like she alwaysdid.

He should tell her to go, Deacon thinks. For the sake of not only the little pride he has left, but the dignity of the entire situation. He should tell her he has moved on, just like she told him to, and to go find another shoulder to cry on. He should just slam the door in her face. Because everything was different now. And he knows Rayna. As soon as she finds out, she will be on the phone with every cancer specialist in the country. She'll want to take care of him, and he will be damned if he'll let her. He loves her too much for that. And his daughter. He loves them both too much to make them watch him suffer.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Deacon says carefully, every word cutting his throat like razorblades as it emerges.

Her face falls. "Right," she says quietly. "Well, I don't blame you I guess. I just… wanted to say…I'm sorry, Deacon. For the Rolling Stone article. For everything in the last few months…. You were right, I sold us out, and I will always regret that."

There was that word again. Us. It lingers in the air between them. Because even during the 14 years she'd been married to Teddy, they had always been an "us". Sometimes it was silent, sometimes it was like the elephant in the room. Which _us?_ He would think. _Which us is she talking about? Me and her us, or her and Teddy us? _

She turns to go, head lowered, looking defeated.

"Ray," his voice is barely audible behind her. But that one word means everything.

Rayna turned to look at him, and with a sigh, he steps aside and gestures for her to come in.

###########################

It feels like an hour of silence as she sinks into the familiar leather sofa, and he sits on the arm of the chair, intently watching her, but really it's probably only a minute.

"You okay?" He asks quietly, concerned but wary.

"Not really," she says with a sigh, staring down at her hands in her lap. It feels so empty now, but lighter. The weight of that ring has been lifted. "You were right, you know. I wasn't living my life the way I wanted…and I couldn't do it. I need to stop making the same mistakes, and I need to figure out how to fix em."

He is real quiet, just sitting there. He's listening, but his eyes are everywhere but on hers, and that isn't like him.

Rayna can feel the tension coming off of him all the way across the room. It wasn't just the two of them being alone here like this. He is guarded. Something is going on. She can feel it. Pain strikes her heart, and she wonders if he took her advice this time, if he has really moved on and she is out of place even sitting here.

For the first time in a long time, she realizes she knows nothing of what was going on in his life, and he feels farther away than he ever has. It is a sad, uneasy feeling, and she vows that one way or another she will fix this.

"So that was it, huh," Deacon says quietly. "You just got tired of the idea of playing Mrs. Luke Wheeler?"

"That was part of it."

"What was the rest?"

"You," she says, her voice shaky.

Deacon's eyes finally meet hers, pained. It was what he'd waited to hear for so long, and now it wasn't just a far off hope. It was an impossible one, that made his eyes burn and his heart hurt.

"These two weeks…." Rayna says, struggling to find the right words. . "I realized what my life is like without you in it, Deacon. And I don't want that."

His breathing is ragged as he sighs.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Rayna says, her voice hitching a little. "But maybe we can find a way to ….start over from here."

He waits a long time before he answers.

_I should have never opened the door,_ he thinks.

"Ray, I think you really need to take a little time to yourself," he says, finally able to speak. "And figure out that you're okay on your own, with the girls."

She nods, brushing the hair back from her face and rubbing her eyes wearily. "I think I'm going to take them away for a few weeks. Not to Australia obviously, but just….get away from it all."

"That'd probably be a good thing," he says quietly. "You know uh….you could always take em to the cabin if you wanted. It's empty anyway, and then you wouldn't be so far from home if anything happened."

'I think they'd love that," Rayna says with a pleased smile. "Especially Maddie. She couldn't stop going on about it for a week after you took her there in November. We'd be real grateful if that's okay with you."

"It's fine with me. When you get up there, there's a spare key-."

"Under the flower pot on the back porch," she finished. "I remember."

She reaches over and puts a hand on his arm, and just that is enough for him to feel the spark that has always been between the two of them, and is still there.

Their eyes meet, and he squeezes her fingers. "You'll be okay, Ray. You always land on your feet. Just take some time and….get back to being you."

Their eyes meet, and she feels herself melting into that same puddle, that way that Deacon has of telling her he loves her without having to say a damn word.

"If I do that," she said, her voice shaking. "Will you be there?"

It hurts, burns like fire inside his chest. Because all he wants to do is wipe those tears off her face and pull her into his arms and tell her everything will be okay.

But reality is a bitch, and nothing is ever going to be okay again.

"Yeah," he lies. "I'll be there."

#######################################

Deacon goes to the kitchen to get her some tea, and when he comes back, Rayna has laid her head against the arm of the couch, face against her folded hands, and her eyes are closed.

She looks so at peace that he hates to wake her, so instead he grabs the blanket off the back of the chair and covers her to her chin. Unable to resist, he leans over and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead. She never moves.

He sits in the leather chair for a long time and watches her sleep before he grabs the paperwork out of the desk drawer nearby and heads out on the backporch to write by the porch light.

The bitter cold stings his face, but the tears on his face are hot as he starts writing. He'd never thought he'd be writing out the rest of his life at the age of 45. A person thinks they have all the time in the world, and one day with a few words it all just slips away.

_The cabin should be left to my daughter, under the ownership of her mother, Rayna Jaymes. I want them to have somewhere to go when they need to escape, and it's good for that…._

#######################################

Rayna wake when it was still dark out, disoriented. It takes her a second to realize she must have fallen asleep on Deacon's couch.

He was asleep in the leather chair a few feet away, still with his winter jacket and boots on.

Quietly she rises, folds the blanket, and then walks over to where he sleeps. She presses a kiss to his cheek, but he never moves.

She pulled on her boots and slips out the door.

By dawn, she has roused the girls to pack their bags, and they are on the road.


	2. Chapter 2

**Rayna**

The sun is coming up in front of them in a gorgeous ball of red and gold as they cross the last hill. It is a good day for starting over, and she is filled with an odd mixture of thrill and apprehension. She is exited to get to reconnect with her girls, grateful Deacon had offered them the use of the cabin, but a sadness she can't seem to shake still lingers.

"Mom," Daphne calls sleepily from the backseat. "Are you going to tell us where we're going now?"

"Nope," she says with a smile. "But we're almost there."

"I think I know where we're going," Maddie says quietly.

She glances over at her oldest daughter.

"Is he going to be there?"

"No," Rayna says. "Just us."

Maddie looks a little disappointed, but tries to hide it.

"It'll be nice though," Maddie says with quiet enthusiasm. "To get away from all the cameras."

Rayna reaches for her daughter's hand across the console and gives it a squeeze. She knows Maddie has probably been hurt by the invasion of privacy more than any of them, and she would give anything to undo it all. "Yes, it will. Pretty cool that Deacon said we could come up here, isn't it? This is a really special place."

Maddie nods.

Rayna is sure Deacon has told her things, how a place like this had been a dream of theirs when they first started out, to have an escape from the city, and the business. How he'd bought it for her after her first CMA nomination.

She's sure he hasn't told her the _entire_ story, though, how this place had given them more than just an escape.

It had given them Maddie.

They pull off the dirt road onto the long driveway that leads up to the cabin, and the 4- wheel drive kicks in as they hit the unplowed snowdrifts. It hasn't snowed much up here yet this year, but there has to be a good foot or so of powder on the ground. Daphne squeals in delight at the bumps.

Rayna laughs at the girls as they trudge through the snow to the porch, occasionally scooping down to toss a snowball at each other. Their giggles are contagious, and they echo out in the wide open space against the trees and the snow. The morning is crisp and cool, the sun is quickly rising, and up here they are surrounded by nothing but smooth white untouched perfection.

The key is right where Deacon said it would be. They make short work of carrying in their bags and the groceries before shedding boots and hats and coats.

"Go on and pick out a room," Rayna says to the girls. "I'm going to turn up the heat and get it nice and cozy in here, and then I'll make us some breakfast."

"Come on," Maddie pulls Daphne down the hallway. "You can share my room. There's three empty ones, but it'll be more fun if we share."

It is nice to see the two of them back in each other's orbit as well. It's been hard on Daphne in the last year, watching Maddie make a life with a father that isn't hers, and also Maddie is growing up and away from wanting to have a little sister tagging around, as teenagers do. They're both growing up fast.

A smile crosses Rayna's face as she listens to their happy chatter. _First thing we need_, she decides, _is_ _some music_. She thumbs through Deacon's collection of vinyls to find the Elvis Christmas album she knows is there, and pulls it out victoriously. It's spinning on the record player in the corner in a few minutes, and the King is singing "Santa Claus is Back in Town".

The girls are in and out of every room while she unpacks the groceries they've brought along and contemplates where to put things. She can't help but laugh out loud when she opens the pantry cupboard and Deacon has got nothing but a box of pasta and 10 rounds of canned spaghetti in there.

Some things never change. Deacon is not a person of change. He doesn't let go of things. _Or people,_ she thinks wryly. The raggedy recliner in the other room is the same one they'd bought 20 years ago, and it had been old then, now the material on the arms was so thin the pattern was worn smooth. He has the same artwork on the walls, and the Eternity sign is still over the door.

She remembers when they bought it, stopping impulsively at a yard sale on the way up on a summer day.

_She thumbed through a stack of novels while Deacon wandered around looking over stuff on the tables. _

"_Hey look," he said, causing her to glance up. He has walked over by her holding a long wooden sign. "This would be good for the cabin, right?" It had one word painted across it: Eternity. "We can hang it over the door." _

"_I like it," she said, pleased. "It has a good meaning." _

"_Yep," he said, his mouth turning up into a grin. "It means you're stuck with me forever." _

"_Deacon," she says, laughing. "What 'm I gonna do with you?" _

"_Keep me, I guess," he said, planting a kiss on her mouth. "Or maybe I'll keep you." _

"_Ahem," the old lady running the garage sale gives em a stern look. "No loitering!" _

_Deacon tosses a dollar on her table, and they are on their way. _

It takes her a second to regain her composure as she stares at that sign and contemplates everything Eternity means. Forever. Unending. Part of a circle that can't be broken. They will always be tangled up in each other. She has tried to fight it for so long, but it is their truth, and she thinks she is finally ready to face that. Scared to death, but ready, nonetheless. Her only hope is that it's not too late.

Over plates of eggs and bacon, the girls talk about all the fun things they want to do this week while they get their mom all to themselves.

"Can we roast marshmallows in the fire place?" Daphne asks, her enthusiasm contagious. "Later?"

"We could do that," Rayna agrees, "I haven't done any fire building in years, though," she admits. "Think we can figure it out?"

"I can help, Mom," Maddie says confidently. "Dad taught me how to do it when we were here. And how to put it out safely when you're done."

Rayna glances across the table at her, caught off guard a little to hear the way calling Deacon "Dad" rolls so easily from Maddie now. "Dad?" she says. "Um…When did that start?"

Maddie gets real busy with pushing her eggs around her place all of a sudden. "Awhile ago," she admits. "I guess you weren't around."

"Guess I wasn't," Rayna says softly.

"That's okay, right? Because he _is_ my dad."

"Yes, honey. That's just fine."

She watches the girls eat, her heart aching a little.

_I wish he was here with us_, she thinks.

Last night when she had driven to his house, she didn't know what she'd been expecting but he is definitely keeping her at a distance, at least for now. It hurts, even though she knows she deserves it. She's made such a mess of everything, and it's going to take some time to unsort it all.

**###################################**

**Deacon**

"You make that appointment for that treatment they talked about yet?" Scarlett asks as she's standing by the door slipping on her coat and boots.

"Nope," Deacon says, not even looking up from his newspaper. "I don't need em to pump me full of poison just to delay what I already know. All those pills you keep shoving down my throat are bad enough."

"For god sakes," Scarlett mutters. "You are the most damn stubborn man on the planet."

She will never admit in front of him how terrified she is, not only of what the outcome of all this is going to be, but how easily he seems to just have already given up, like his life isn't worth fighting for.

She just wishes she knew how to convince him otherwise.

The doorbell rings, before they can get back into the same argument they've been having since the moment they released him from the hospital yesterday.

Being the closest, Scarlett opens the door, and Rayna's sister Tandy barges right in, her face determined. She is a woman on a mission.

Scarlett gives Deacon a look behind her back with raised eyebrows. "Well, I was just leavin." And she makes a quick escape.

"Where are they?" Tandy demands.

"Sorry, not sure I know what you're talking about." Deacon says, not even looking up from the newspaper in his hands.

Tandy has her hands on her hips, glaring at him.

That woman. For as much as he loves Rayna, her sister has never been too fond of him, and he hasn't been too fond of her either. They have made nice with each other in front of Ray all those years, but he always feels like Tandy is staring daggers at his back as soon as he turns around.

"I know you know where they are," Tandy says. "She leaves me a note saying they'll be back in a week, I have no idea where they've gone or if they're even in the country."

Deacon sets his paper down, and rises from to leather sofa. He walks into the kitchen, just kind of pretending like she isn't there, but Tandy is right on his heels.

"You know why she called off that wedding," Tandy says quietly from behind him. "It was because of you. It's always because of you."

It pisses him off a little, because Tandy has no idea. He has paid for his sins a thousand times over. Hell, he missed the first 13 years of his daughter's life, that in itself is enough of a punishment. But apparently that _isn't_ enough. The man upstairs is not done with him, because now more than likely he'll miss the rest of her life as well. For Tandy to stand there and accuse him of ruining something else in Rayna's life, well, that was pretty much the last straw.

"You blaming me again, huh, Tandy." He says, his voice edged in sarcasm. "Maybe if you weren't always trying to push her into what_ you_ think is the right thing-."

"Me!" Tandy exclaims. "You proposed to her on the _night she got engaged to someone else,_ Deacon. What kind of a jackass move is that?"

"You're the one who convinced her to marry Teddy," Deacon says, raising his voice. "Maybe if you woulda stayed out of it back then, we'd be celebrating 15 years of marriage right now!"

Tandy stops yelling abruptly, and so does he.

She is stunned, that he has had the nerve to say out loud what she has felt guilty about since the day Rayna told her of Teddy's affair with Peggy.

Deacon runs his hands through his hair and rubs his eyes. "I didn't mean it like that…exactly."

"Yes you did," Tandy says quietly. "And I guess it's true, in a way. But I love my sister, and all I really want is for her to be happy."

"I guess we both do," Deacon says, and they both stand there, staring at each other for a minute, neither one ready to back down. It is a coming to terms with each other, of sorts. Tandy will always fight like hell for her sister.

It makes him relieved, in a way. When he is gone, Rayna and the girls will always have Tandy to look out for them.

He finds himself thinking in "when" more now, than "if". It is depressing as hell.

"I know she came over here last night to see you."

"She did."

"What happened?"

"I think that's between her and me, don't you?"

"I just want to know if she's okay," Tandy says in a quieter tone.

"Honestly, I don't know," he admits. "We're not exactly on the same page right now. But as far as physically okay, like are they some place safe and quiet and away from cameras and news reporters? Yeah. They're fine."

Tandy looks like she wanted to say something else.

"You can let yourself out," Deacon says, abruptly ending the conversation. He opens the door off the kitchen that leads to the backyard and disappears.

Tandy leans against the kitchen sink for a second, feeling defeated.

Something else catches her eye. Pill bottles lined up along the window ledge, with Deacon's name above the prescription. What the hell is that all about? She peers at the bottles, glancing over her shoulder to see if Deacon plans on returning for another round of sparring, and she tries to memorize the drug names before quickly leaving his house and heading for her car.

In her car, she types the names in the google search engine of her phone.

_That can't be right,_ she thinks. _This is for patients with advanced hepatitis and liver cancer._

It hits her, all at once, and her heart starts to hammer. She covers her mouth her hand, and forces herself to drive away before she gets physically ill.

It is entirely possible her sister just gave up a future with one man for a man who didn't have a future at all.

################################################

**Rayna**

It isn't until later that night, after a day of playing in the snow, and roasting smores in front of their expertly built fire, after she has tucked her giggling girls into the queen sized bed in Maddie's room together, that she gets the nerve to go into Deacon's room. She has to. It is driving her crazy.

_Just a peek,_ she thinks. _Whose gonna know?_

Cautiously Rayna pushes open the door, and somehow it comforts her to see it is another room that is mostly the same. This was "their" room. There is still a picture of the two of them on the bureau, taken on a tour bus back in the day. They look so young, gazing into each other's eyes like no one else in the world exists. Back then no one else did. She looks barely a few years older than Maddie in that picture.

There is a picture of Maddie in a frame as well now, holding a fishing pole and wearing one of his old hats and a huge grin.

Rayna sits in the middle of the bed, and pulls her knees to her chest, and closes her eyes, and remembers how he'd always been an early morning person, and she would have laid in this bed until he dragged her out by her toes if it was possible. But he didn't know sometimes she just laid there and listened. Him banging around in the kitchen, singing in the shower. The thud of his axe as he chopped wood outside the window. The sound of his bootsteps. He was never idle, always had to be doing something. Then after awhile he'd come in the room and poke at her, all wrapped up in every blanket they owned. "_You gettin up yet?" _

_ "In a minute," she'd take his hands and pull him down onto the bed with her. "Come snuggle with me first." _

_ "Ray, I just got done chopping wood and I'm seriously dirty. And I got my boots on." _

_ "That never stopped us before, did it?" _

Sitting there in the middle of that bed, suddenly she missed him so much it was almost unbearable. She would give anything to hear those footsteps in the other room.

She lays back against the pillows for just a second, and in the darkness where no one can see, she stops being the unflappable superwoman label head Rayna Jaymes, and she just becomes like any other woman with a broken heart. She lets more tears fall than she has in a long time.

############################################

They spend the next few days in quiet contentment, talking, playing games, reading, singing, making cookies. They have become their little triangle again, and Rayna likes it this way. The girls like it this way too.

They spend an entire day decorating the cabin with the fake tree and old ornaments they've found in a hall closet.

Rayna shakes her head as she sifts through the box of ornaments, while the girls are stringing popcorn on thread. "I can't believe Deacon still has all this stuff. He hates this fake tree, I'm surprised he hasn't tossed it out in the snowbank years ago."

"Well, he never gets rid of anything," Maddie says with an affectionate eyeroll.

"You know I remember," Rayna smiles. "The first year we had this place, I bought this fake tree, and he was so mad at me. He wanted a real one."

"So what did you do?"

"We had two trees that year," she recalls with a laugh.

"_Deacon, this is ridiculous," she said, trying to hold up the trunk of the tree as somewhere underneath the branches he tightened up the stand to get it straight. "There is a perfectly good fake tree right there in the corner, with lights already on it and everything." He had taken one look at the box with the fake tree she'd bought, grabbed a saw, and came back an hour later dragging the most pathetic looking pine tree she'd ever seen that he'd cut out of the woods. _

_Deacon crawled out from under the tree, satisfied that it stayed up right. "Rayna," he said with a face of complete serious. "This is our first Christmas here. You want a damn plastic tree, fine. You can have your tree over there and I'll have mine over here." _

"Mom, that's silly." Maddie said, laughing.

"Well honey, I guess that's what you get for having two stubborn parents."

"I'm so happy we're here with you, Mommy." Daphne keeps saying, snuggling up to her on the sofa.

"I think we'll probably head for home on Sunday," Rayna says. "It's Christmas Eve that day, and I'm sure aunt Tandy misses us."

"I like it up here," Maddie says. "Away from everyone. It's too bad we have to go. I wouldn't mind spending Christmas here."

Of course she would, Rayna thinks affectionately. She is her father's girl, thriving on the solitude.

Friday night as they are finishing up a round of Monopoly, where Daphne is beating the pants off both of them, the bells over the door jingle, and all three of them turn in surprise to see Deacon walk in, snow dusting his shoulders.

The girls are on him instantly, demanding hugs and then running to get cookies and coffee. Rayna hangs back a little, watching the scene. Their love for him makes her a little teary-eyed, because as much as she knew they'd tried to like Luke, there was always a forced element to it.

This is genuine. Whatever happens with her and Deacon, he is still Maddie's father and will always be in their lives.

Deacon takes it in, how alive this old place seems with them in it. The fake Christmas tree in the corner they'd dug out of a closet, Christmas music playing softly, her girls with their happy giggles. He hasn't dug out a single Christmas decoration around this place in 15 years.

It feels alive. He thinks of the will he'd passed along to his lawyer that morning. Leaving the cabin to Rayna and the girls just feels right. They belong here. No one else does.

"It's good to see you," Rayna says with a little smile.

He thinks the solitude of being away from Nashville this week has done her good. She looks rested, less stressed. She looks like the Rayna he has missed, in jeans and a sweater the exact color of her eyes, with her hair in a ponytail, no glitz and glamour, just a mom spending time with her girls. But there is still that sadness in her eyes. He hates seeing that.

"You too," he says quietly, glancing over her shoulder. The girls are still in the kitchen. "Listen, I know you brought up the girls to be alone, but there's a huge blizzard about to hit tomorrow. I'm pretty sure it's going to be early, it was getting bad on the way up already. It might be a rough trip."

Her smile wavers a little. "Oh, is….that why you came?" _That's it_, she thinks sadly. _That's the only reason he came_. _He's just watching out for us. _She appreciated that, but…..

With a sigh, she walks over and peers out the windows. It is nothing but a light snow falling.

"I'm not ready to go home yet," she admits. "Is the news coverage still crazy?"

"Yes," he says wryly. "They're watching your house like vultures. And now they're watching my house too. Luke paid me a visit a few days ago. I'm sure you'll see the video of us beating the crap out of each other in my front yard."

"What? Oh Deacon," she says, dismayed. "Really? It really had to come to that?"

"Rayna," Deacon says in a voice that means drop it. "It was a long time coming, and you know it."

Their eyes meet for a second, and it's like everything else fades away.

He is the first one to look away, and it makes her soul ache.

"Well anyway," he says quickly. "I also thought you'd probably be running low on stuff by now, so I have some supplies in the truck," he adds. "I'll bring em in."

"I'll help you," she said, reaching for her red parka, hanging from the back of a kitchen chair.

They make quick work of the grocery bags in the backseat.

The last bag she reaches for is a black garbage bag. "What's this?"

"The girls Christmas presents from your house," Deacon says. "Tandy dropped em off this morning. I thought just in case. I know you. I figured you wouldn't be ready to come home."

She is touched to the bottom of her heart, that he would think of the girls like that.

And she has to stop for a minute, leaning against the side of his truck, tucking her arms into her sides. It's cold out here, the chill biting her face, but suddenly she feels very warm.

Deacon leans next to her for a second, and they stare at the cabin with all its lights blazing like a beacon in the darkness of the woods that surround them.

"That's not the only reason I came," Deacon says, dragging the words out with a heavy sigh. "I was worried about you. Just wanted to make sure you're okay."

"You know," Rayna says quietly. "I keep trying to figure out how I'm gonna clean up this mess I've made of my life, and it's a little overwhelming. I'm not okay. But I'm getting there."

"That's good," he says. "Real good. It takes awhile, you know….to get over someone."

Sometimes you never did.

Rayna couldn't stop herself, any more than she could stop the snow falling on them.

She hugged him. Just put her arms around his neck, and hugged him as tight as she could, whether he wanted her to or not.

"Thank you," she whispers.

He can't resist, and his arms go around her waist, and he buries his face in her hair and closes his eyes, and tries to burn this very moment into his heart for whatever time he has left.

"Mom," Daphne's voice on the porch interrupts them. "Do we have any more marshmallows?"

With a sigh, Rayna pulls away from him, and trudges up the porch steps. Before she heads in, she turns and looks at him one more time standing there next to the truck watching her.

"You coming in?" She asks tentatively, almost afraid of the answer she might get. "Or hitting the road?"

Daphne, without a coat on, is standing there in her slippers jumping up and down. "Cmon Deacon!" she called. "We're making smores."

Maddie comes out on the porch behind the two of them. "What in the world are you guys doing out here, it's freezing!"

Something changes inside him standing there watching the three of them, and hope comes back to life. For the first time since that day in the hospital, he realizes that Scarlett is right, he's been a stubborn idiot to think that the fight isn't worth it. It's worth it, just to spend as much time with this woman, these girls, as the man upstairs lets him have, no matter how it ends.

He's ready to fight now.

"Yeah," he says, clearing his throat. "I'm coming in."


	3. Chapter 3

Maddie and Daphne enthusiastically take Deacon's arms at once to pull him back into the warmth of the cabin.

"Just for a little bit, I can't stay long," he says, shooting Rayna an apologetic look over their heads. "I really gotta get back on the road before the storm hits."

"Of course."

"Not staying long" turns into a lot of s'mores and a round of checkers with the girls, and time slips away in a hurry.

Rayna comes in from refilling her coffee cup in the kitchen, and finds the three of them now sitting on the floor around the coffee table, Deacon dealing playing cards found in a junk drawer, and using nickels to bet with.

"Really, Deacon," she says mildly. "Are you trying to teach my girls to play poker?"

"It's math, Ray," he says, with a wink at Daphne. "That makes it educational, right?"

"Not quite."

Daphne giggles.

Rayna settles in the old comfty recliner and watches them for awhile, hiding her smile behind her mug, loving the way all three of them wear a version of the same face, intensely staring at their cards.

"Dad, you're cheating!" Maddie exclaims, after Deacon wins a hand with four aces. "You were hiding a card in your sleeve."

"What- no," he says innocently. "I would never do that."

Rayna loves the way the word "Dad" slips out so easily between the two of them now, as if it has always been this way.

His smile is contagious, that smile she has always secretly admired, that just gets better every year as he ages, and soon the girls are laughing too. After how much time she's spent away from them in the last six months, after all the confusion and heartache they've all been through, it is the best sound she's ever heard to hear the three of them laugh.

For a split second, she thinks about Luke, and realizes it is the first time all day he has crossed her mind. She doesn't miss him, and that seems wrong in a way, to not miss someone you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with. But this scene in front of her, this feels so unbelievably right that it heals the space in her heart that has been sore and bruised for the last week. It heals the regrets, the guilt, the sadness over everything. Little by little she feels like she is getting herself back.

She knows she made the right choice. Watching how happy her girls are right now just confirms it.

Deacon stands up to take a break, and he walks over and gazes outside. The snow is blowing ferociously now, leaving drifts against the floor-to-ceiling windows.

"It looks like it's getting pretty bad out there," Rayna says casually.

"Guess so, huh."

"You should probably just stay," Maddie adds hopefully. "I mean it's _your_ cabin. We just kind of invaded it."

Looking at those two sitting there with their pretty pleading eyes, he is a goner.

He glances over at Rayna.

Her expression is neutral. "Well if the roads are snowed over, you better just stay."

"Yeah," he says, his eyes meeting hers. "Guess I better. Wouldn't want to leave you girls up here in a storm all alone anyway."

"Besides," Maddie adds, breaking the gaze that travels between them. "I need to win all my money back from you, Dad."

After another round of cards and a few more s'mores, the sleepy-eyed girls hug them both good night and wander off to their room.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Deacon says with a knowing grin.

"Did what?"

"Let them distract me into hanging around long enough for the storm to hit."

"I did no such thing," Rayna says, feigning innocence. But he sees the lingering smile as she follows the girls to say goodnight to them.

When she comes back, he is sitting on the couch, feet up on the table with a cup of coffee in his hand, staring into the fire with a more somber expression than earlier.

She watches him from the doorway for a minute, wondering what he's thinking. It's strange to be on the other end of this scenario, but something is going on with him. She can feel it. Right now she pushes the worries away.

_This is perfect_, she thinks. _Thank you, mother nature_. What better way to start reconnecting than being snowed in for a few days. And it gives her excuse not to go back. She knows they need to, but the thought of all that faces her, she cringes even trying to imagine what the press is making of it.

"Hey," he says quietly as she approaches. "The girls asleep?"

"As soon as their heads hit the pillows," Rayna says. "You wore them out."

"They wear me out too. But I love every minute with them. You know that."

"I do," she stands in front of him and reaches out her hand, and he looks up at her, his blue eyes questioning.

"C'mon, Deacon," she says, and her eyes smile, teasing. "Dance with me. Like we used to."

His eyes say he sure as hell wants to. He is done pushing her away. Even though he knows he should, he _can't_. He needs her too much. His life means nothing without her in it.

"I'd have to be an idiot to say no to that." He sets down the coffee cup on the edge of the table, and stands up.

The record player in the corner has been playing quietly all day, and now she turns it up just a little, and the sweet sounds of "I'll be home for Christmas" float out around them as he takes her by the hand and spins her around, and then pulls her in closer.

Laughter rumbles softly in his chest. "You're not exactly home for Christmas," he reminds quietly.

"Don't you know, Deacon? Home is with your family, it doesn't matter where you are."

She gives a quiet content sigh, and leans her head against his shoulder. Everything else in the background just melts away.

It is the last song on the record. The music ends, and the fire is down to the last smoldering log, and somehow they are still dancing, swaying softly. It feels like a new beginning is starting right now. And it's so fitting that it would be here, in that place where their family had started in the first place with Maddie.

"Ray," he says, tightening his arms around her. "There's so much we gotta talk about, things I gotta tell you…" But right now, he just couldn't take away that light in her eyes, and the feeling that this was finally the beginning of their chance to get it right.

"Deacon," she whispers. "I miss us."

Her eyes are the brightest he's seen them in a long time. The dull ache in his chest that has been there for days lessens just a little as Rayna leans up and presses her mouth against his hesitantly at first, then more determined. It is a long and slow and sweet kiss, and so very, very right.

It takes him back for a second to the first time she'd shocked the hell out of him by kissing him when she was sixteen years old. They'd come so far, and been through so much, and the battle was far from over. But he'd fight, alright. He'd fight like hell to hold onto this, for as long as he could.

The energy between them lights his blood on fire instantly, and if her girls weren't asleep in the room down the hall, he would already be scooping her up to carry her down the hall to the room that he still secretly thinks of as "theirs".

She wants him just as much, and the ferocity of it surprises her. The fire has always been there under the ashes, but now that they've breathed on it and brought it back to life, there is no stopping it.

Rayna leans her forehead against his, and closes her eyes as she tries to make her breathing slow back to a normal pace. "That was nice," she whispers.

"Yeah," he says softly. "Real nice."

"I think I better…go. You know. To bed and all. The girls…."

"I think you better."

Rayna presses one more kiss to his lips, and reluctantly breaks away from the circle of his arms. "Goodnight, Deacon," she says, a little smile lingering on hers, and she leaves him standing there in the middle of the room alone and heads off to bed in the room next to Maddie and Daphne's.

Deacon sighs as he watches her go, knowing he isn't gonna be getting much sleep tonight without a cold shower or a trip outside on the porch to let the icy wind beat at him for a minute. Funny how she can make him forget everything. Even a potential death sentence. Right now doctor's appointments and cancer treatments are the farthest thing from his mind.

He's not much of a religious guy, but as he sits in the chair by himself and watches the fire die out completely, he says a silent prayer that this isn't going to be the only Christmas they get to spend together, but if it is, he will do his damnest to make it one they won't forget.

##########################

Rayna wakes to the smell of pancakes and girls giggling. She lays in bed for awhile, just listening, a smile crossing her face.

"Dad," Maddie is saying. "Those pancakes do _not_ look like snowflakes."

Daphne is howling with laughter. "Snowballs! They look like snowballs."

"Well snowballs, then," he is laughing with them. "Don't I get credit for trying?"

"I suppose."

Rayna rolls out of the nice warm bed and walks barefoot down the hall, where she stands in the kitchen doorway wrapped up snuggly in a red flannel robe she may have pilfered from Deacon's closet a few days ago. She watches the trio at the counter.

"It's Christmas Eve, you know," Daphne says. "That means presents!" Her smile fades a little. "Wait, how are we going to get our presents if we're here?"

"How long do you think it will snow for?" Maddie asks. "Are we going to be snowed in here for Christmas?"

"I think so. But I'm sure Santa will find his way," Deacon says, scooping the rest of the pancakes off the griddle and onto a plate with a spatula.

"We're too old for that. We know Mom buys the presents, Deacon. I bet they're all at home in her closet."

"Oh come on now, that's no fun!"

Daphne is the first one to notice her mother standing there.

"Mom!" she exclaims. "We were going to make you breakfast in bed. Go back to bed."

Rayna laughs. "Well that's a beautiful thought, sweetheart, but I wouldn't mind at all having it out here with the three of you."

She goes to the windows and peers outside. It's the day before christmas. The blizzard is howling, and she can barely see the edge of the porch. None of them are going anywhere, at least for awhile. Inside the cabin is warm and cozy, and her heart is happy.

Their little trio has turned into a circle, and she doesn't mind it one bit.

Maddie and Daphne make short work of setting the places at the counter and get great amusement out of serving them restaurant-style.

'I'm really glad you're here," she says quietly to Deacon as they wait for the girls to bring their "orders".

He reaches over and squeezes her knee. "I am too."

After breakfast and kitchen cleanup, Daphne and Maddie spend a good portion of the day in their room, working on a secret project. They are making presents with things out of the craft box Daphne brought along, Maddie says, and Rayna and Deacon are not allowed to come in. The girls come out every once in awhile looking for glue or tape, or a piece of ribbon, but that is it.

With not much else to do, Rayna settles with Deacon in the living room, in front of the fire, with a cup of the girls' hot chocolate she has pilfered.

"Marshmallows and all," he teases. "You're livin now."

"It feels good to be away from everything," she admits. "I needed a break, maybe more than I thought."

He nods. "Sometimes you have to step out of the box a little and look at your life from the outside."

"Guess so."

He's got his guitar out, working on a new tune as always.

She goes to the bookshelf in the corner and pulls out the thick photo album that is still on the bottom shelf, knowing full well what it is. Pictures upon pictures of their first years together. There's three more albums like this on the shelf right next to it.

"My goodness," she murmurs. "Look at that hair. What was I thinking?"

Deacon stops playing for a second. He leans over and takes a look at the picture she is pointing to. "Your hair. My cut off shirts. We were a hot mess."

"Yes we were," she says, laughing softly. But something else is evident in those pictures, the way they look each other could never mean anything except two people that only have eyes for each other. They were young, and so damn happy. In deep. In love.

She sighs a little, remembering. "It was so much easier back then, wasn't it?"

"It was," he says quietly.

He starts playing again.

Somehow they start out on opposite ends of the couch, and before long, they're stretched out with their feet up, opposite of each other.

The memories hit her hard, how many nights that they'd spent here together doing this very thing, before the rest of the world got hold of them, and it all went to hell.

"That sounds nice," she says. "Got any words yet?"

All day they have been cautiously dancing around each other after that kiss last night. She wonders if it was a mistake, if it's too early, but it felt so good and so unbelievably right, that she thinks there is no way it can be. What they really need, what they've needed all along, is a slow and steady chance to start over.

"Nah, just had the tune in my head for a few days."

She just listens, enjoying that his playing and the occasional noise of the girls running through, and the buzz of the wind outside, the crackling of the fire are literally the only sounds in the world at that moment. It is peace to her ears.

After awhile, Deacon stops playing and rubs his temples.

He looks tired, she thinks. Then again, stuck in a cabin for two days with a bunch of females would run any man ragged.

"Are you okay?" she asks, concerned.

"I'm good," Deacon tries to sound like he means it. "Just got a headache is all."

"Why don't you go take a nap," Rayna says. "The girls and I are going to cook Christmas dinner from….well, whatever we can find. We'll wake you when it's ready."

"You sure? Just for a few minutes, maybe. It'd help."

"Go."

Deacon hates to admit it, but he is relieved to go down the hall and lay in the dark room and close his eyes. Just for a few minutes, he thinks.

Two hours later, Rayna is shaking him awake gently by the shoulder.

"Hey there," she says, her face hovering over his looking a little worried in the dim light of the bedroom. "Are you alright? You've been asleep for a long time."

"I'm okay," he says, shaking the fog from his head, and sitting on the edge of the bed. She hovers over him, still looking concerned.

"Is your headache gone?"

"Yep," he says. And it was. He felt a lot better. For now. "How's the Christmas prep going?"

"Well it turned into homemade chicken soup and bread. It's not exactly a Christmas feast, but I hope that sounds good."

"It sounds amazing," he says, reaching for her hand and squeezing it gently.

"Deacon…." She says again softly. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes," he says. "Go on out there by the girls, I'll be out in a minute."

Reluctantly she leaves him in the dark room. He rubs his eyes, and regains his composure before getting to his feet. He didn't bring that damn bunch of pills along, partially because he didn't want Rayna or the girls to see them, partially because he really had been planning on being back home before he needed them again.

As much as he hates to admit it, he feels like crap without that medication. He needs to get home.

##################################################

After dinner, the girls are beyond excited to bring out the project they've been working on all day.

"We had this idea awhile ago," Maddie explains. "So we just brought everything along and finished it here. We borrowed a few pictures from the photo albums in the living room, so hopefully that's okay? Aunt Tandy gave us some pictures a few weeks ago, but we ran out."

"It's fine, sweetheart," Rayna says as she unties the ribbon on one box and Deacon opens the other. "I can't wait to see what's in here."

"This is our Christmas present to you," Daphne says proudly.

In the boxes, they find an old stack of miniature records, 20 or more in all, each hanging from a ribbon tied in a bow. The girls have pasted a picture on each one, and decorated them beautifully with buttons, glitter, anything they can find.

"We thought you could hang them on the Christmas tree," Maddie says. "And then it'll really be like a family tree."

"Oh, these are beautiful," Rayna says softly, picking up the first one. There is a black and white picture on the front of her with the girls, when Daphne was just a new baby wrapped in a tiny blanket. Her eyes blur a little with tears, as she looks at that picture and thinks just how time fast has gone by.

"They sure are," Deacon says next to her, a lump in his throat. The one he's holding has a picture on it taken on a tour bus back in the day. He's asleep with a guitar next to him, and barely able to see out from behind it, a 3 or 4 year old Maddie is cuddled up asleep next to him.

He knows she got that picture from the book in the living room. It's one of his favorites, one that he's looked at a hundred times or more since he found out Maddie was his.

"Come on, let's hang them on the tree," Daphne says excitedly, taking her mom's hands, while Maddie takes Deacon's.

He looks back at her, and holds out his other hand for Rayna.

Her heart melts as she rises out of her chair, and her fingers tangle with his. So familiar. So right. Sometimes she wonders why she ever fought this so long, because letting it happen is so much easier.

Together the four of them hang the collection of ornaments on the tree and stand back to admire their work.

"Most perfect thing I've ever seen," Deacon says.

"It's like a real family tree," Daphne chimes in.

"Yes," Rayna says softly. But her eyes are not so much on the tree, as the three people standing beside her. "It most certainly is."

#################################

**Christmas morning.**

The blizzard has stopped.

Rayna is the first one awake for once. She slips on her boots and coat and walks out onto the porch.

It is beautiful, perfection untouched. The sun coming up lends a sparkle to the blanket of snow, and the temp has warmed up enough that it is already melting quickly. So perfect and undisturbed. There is not a sound except the drip-drip of icicles melting from the eaves, the chirping of little birds fluttering about, and the quiet rush of the river.

After about ten minutes, she hears the door open behind her, and Deacon appears on the porch.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" She says wistfully.

"It sure is," he says, but he isn't much looking at the snow.

"You think the roads are okay?" She asks. "Not that I'm in a hurry, but I'm sure Tandy is worried about us."

"I'm sure they're fine now," he says. "And Tandy does know you're here. I had to give in and to tell her. She was holding the girls' presents hostage until I did."

"Well we'll just…wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow will be good," she says uncertainly.

"You can't hide forever," he says quietly.

"I'm not hiding," she is indignant.

He raises his eyebrows.

"Okay fine," she says begrudgingly. "I'm hiding. But I know there's going to be a media firestorm over the wedding being called off, and it makes me sick to know the girls are going to be put right back in the middle of that."

"They're tougher than you're giving them credit for," he says. "And so are you."

Rayna shakes her head, leaning against the porch pillar staring out at the snow, hardly able to look him in the eye. "You know, sometimes I swear you give _me _too much credit. All the awful ways I've gone and screwed everything up between us….keeping Maddie from you…my relationship with Luke…." Her bottom lip trembles. "It's such a mess," she whispers. "How can I ever fix all of it?"

"Well," he says, and his hand slide around her waist, pulling her in to lean back against him, and his voice soft next to her ear. "You wanna keep kissing me like you did last night, that could help."

"Deacon, be serious," she says with a sigh. But her little smile says she's thinking about just as much.

"Come on," he says, kissing her neck and giving her a little shiver that has nothing to do with being cold. "You know the girls are awake in there. They're probably watching us through the window. Daphne is chomping at the bit to get at those presents we put under the tree last night. Just put it all behind you for now, okay?"

"Okay," she murmurs, turning and slipping her arms around his neck to hug him tight. "Merry Christmas, Deacon."

"Merry Christmas, Ray."

No present under the tree can ever match the one he is holding right then.


	4. Chapter 4

**Maddie-**

It's Christmas morning. She watches them, when they don't realize she's looking. She's been watching them for three days.

Considering the breakup with Luke about ten minutes before the wedding, her mom has been noticeably quiet, a little sad. Those first couple nights at the cabin, after they went to bed, she played the saddest records her and Daphne ever heard.

Maddie wants to ask if she misses him. Because even though she never wanted her mom to marry Luke, she still wants her to be happy. It's weird, seeing her without that big ring on her finger. It's weird just spending this much time with her, since they've felt so on their own for the last six months. Daphne is eating it up, hardly wanting to leave her mom's side. She wonders if it will all change again, when they get back home and her mom gets busy again running Highway 65.

She feels a little more cautious, maybe still secretly a little bit mad. All the ordeal over the magazines, and the wedding, and it seems like it was all for nothing. She wants them to be close again, like they used to be, but it seems like it might take awhile.

It changed Friday night when Deacon showed up. Suddenly her mom seemed a lot less sad, walking around humming a little tune, getting a little smile on her face when she thinks no one is looking. _Maybe it wasn't Luke she missed_, Maddie thinks.

They watch each other, her mom and Deacon, when they don't think the other is looking. He watches her while she reads. She watches him while he plays. Maddie watches both of them.

She saw them before, hugging outside on the porch, like they never wanted to let go of each other. She is trying real hard not to get her hopes up again, but the way they are with each other, it's so sweet it's almost sad.

Now, Daphne is enthusiastically diving into the stack of presents under the tree.

She knows Deacon must have brought them from home, how awesome her dad is to have thought of her little sister that way, to make sure she wouldn't be disappointed.

Her mom sits by the sofa on the floor now, to watch them open their gifts. Deacon sits behind her on the couch, and Maddie watches as he reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder, and she almost unconsciously covers it with her own, and smiles as he leans forward and says something in her ear.

None of those presents under the tree really mean much to Maddie, although she knows it's going to be nice stuff. All she really wants with every piece of her heart is for her parents to find their way back to each other. She wants the family they were always supposed to be.

Now that Luke is out of the way, maybe, Maddie thinks, it isn't such a far off wish.

So she keeps watching.

#######################################

"Well," Rayna says after all the necessary present-opening has been completed and the wrapping paper cleaned up. "I hate to say it girls, but we really do need to start packing up and heading for home this afternoon."

Both of the girls look disappointed.

"Can't we stay one more night, Mom?" Daphne begs.

"We really can't," Rayna says firmly. "We've been up here a week. I need to get back to my business, and I'm sure your dad misses you like crazy. You haven't gotten to have Christmas with him yet either."

"I gotta get home too," Deacon adds, backing her up. "Scarlett probably thinks I fell off the face of the earth."

Daphne stares out the window wistfully. "I wish we didn't have to go. We didn't get to go sledding yet. The snow looks so pretty."

Rayna sighs at the glum look on their faces. Will one more night really hurt?

"Tell you what," Deacon suggests. "It just so happens that there's an old toboggan out in the shed. I'll see if I can dig it out. If you help your mom pack everything up, we can take a couple runs down the hill before you go."

"Deal," Daphne says slapping him a hi-five, and running off to pack her bags.

A little while later, Rayna is packing the last of the things in the truck and watching the two of them trudge off, dragging the long wooden sled behind them. At the last second, Maddie calls "wait, I'm coming with!" and runs after them.

Deacon looks back at her expectantly.

"You comin'?" he asks.

"Oh no," she says with a smile. "You take the girls. I'll just double check that we have everything."

"Come on, now," he says, his smile cajoling. "You only live once, Ray." _You only live once._

"Well okay," she says reluctantly. "I'll come along, but maybe just watch."

They trudge through the woods and to a place where Deacon knows there is a good hill.

He'll never let on that this entire sledding thing might not have been such a good idea, given the fact that he's exhausted already. Three days without medication, and he's pushed it pretty close, that Rayna and the girls haven't noticed anything is wrong. The smile on the girls' faces are worth it though, even if it lands him back in the damn hospital by tomorrow morning. He can just imagine back at home Scarlett is looking at all those pill bottles ready to chew him out good.

The four of them stand at the top of the giant hill, and the girls are not hesitant about flinging themselves on the toboggan and immediately going flying down the hill, their laughter echoing behind them.

Rayna smiles, watching them as they slow at the bottom, climb off the sled and start the long trudging climb back up the hill.

"They're great," he says next to her.

"Yes they are," she says quietly. She regrets so much all she has missed in the last six months, time and moments that can never be recovered. But this week makes up for some of it. Finally they are back on track. Her and her girls. And maybe her and Deacon too.

Deacon nudges her with his elbow. "That's because they got a great mama."

Their eyes meet for a minute, and the butterflies in her stomach start dancing around. She thinks of Tandy's words the night before the wedding that didn't happen, how her sister didn't know it, but she'd been saying exactly what she needed to hear, about the wrong man. _Just think about the way he looks at you. The way he talks to you. You love him, and that's enough. _

The girls reached the top of the hill then, breaking their gaze.

"Mom, that was really fun," Maddie says breathlessly, laughing. "You should try it."

"Oh no," Rayna says, holding up her hands. "I'd much rather stand safely up here and watch y'all have your fun."

Deacon holds out his hand. "Cmon, Ray," he says, shooting her that grin that in its earlier days had been able to convince her to do just about anything. "It'll be fun."

_Probably it still could,_ she surmises. Damn him and that smile, got her every time.

"Just once," she says hesitantly. "One time and that's it."

Reluctantly she climbs onto the toboggan and scoots all the way to the front, and Deacon gets on behind her, so she is between his knees.

"I swear to god, Deacon," she says. "If we hit a tree with this thing, I will never forgive you."

Suddenly that hill looks huge, and she is reminded of the first time they rode a rollercoaster, after a show somewhere in Illinois. She has always been the chicken, and he is always the one convincing her to take chances, still to this day.

"Scared?" His voice is amusing next to her ear.

"To death," her voice comes out a little breathless. She wonders if they are still talking about sledding. Even with her thick winter coat, she can feel the warmth and strength of him against her back.

"Okay, here we go," Maddie and Daphne push them off from behind, and then they are racing down the hill.

Her scream echoes off the trees, along with his laughter, and that of the girls, cheering at the top of the hill. It's over in two minutes, and they roll off the sled and land in the soft snow at the bottom.

Rayna is laying on her back in the snow, laughing now, staring up at the white sky and the trees, and he is laying next to her. He sits up and leans over her, brushing the snow off her collar, smiling.

"What," she says, pretending to grumble. "are you smiling at? That just took ten years off my life."

"You have snow flakes in your eyelashes."

Feeling her face flush, she reaches up a gloved hand to brush the snow off her face.

"Don't," he said softly, catching her hand. "I like it."

She looks so beautiful laying there, her red coat and her reddish blond hair against the white of the snow, that he can't not do it. He leans over and kisses her, capturing her mouth under his, so sweet and so familiar. It makes him remember once again that he sure as hell does have something to fight for, and he will. He'll fight to kiss her every day for as long as he's left hangin around this earth.

The little smile on her face says she likes it too.

#######################################

After a few more sled runs, Rayna reluctantly tells the girls that they need to hit the road, and they start trudging back towards the cabin.

"You comin?" Maddie calls. She's got the sled, but Deacon is dragging a little, walking a little ways behind them.

"I'm comin," he says, forcing a smile, knowing that last sled run was probably the worst damn idea ever. He feels like he's been hit by a semi. The fatigue is the worst part of all of this.

Rayna eyes him up. "You okay?"

"I'm okay," he says, stopping for a moment reluctantly to catch his breath, trying to make a joke out of it. "Think I'm getting old, Ray."

"Oh come on now," she says, giving him a teasing smile. She waves the girls on ahead, and it's a good five minutes before Deacon starts moving again.

But now, she's worried, and he can tell. Dammit, he forces himself to keep moving, because he sure as hell aint gonna fall face down in the snow in front of her and the girls.

Finally the cabin is in sight, and he can breathe a little easier as he settles on the top porch step and watches Rayna check one more time that they have everything.

"Bye, Dad," Maddie hugs him long and hard. "I'll see you next week."

Daphne's hug practically knocks him over. "Bye, Deacon. You make the best pancakes ever."

Rayna smiles and shakes her head as she watches the girls climb into the SUV. "I swear if they could those girls would live on nothing but pancakes."

Deacon leans with his back against the rail and his hands in his pockets and watches with guarded eyes as they get ready to leave. How would it be now, he wonders. Going back to the real world. They'd been playing at this little fantasy for a few days but now it was time to face reality. For her, her broken engagement and all the ill effects. For him….the reality that he needed to suck it up and make that doctor's appointment and accept whatever they told him was the best possible treatment. Live with it…or not. But deal with it nonetheless.

He is hard-pressed to admit that Rayna wasn't the only one who'd come up here to do a little running away.

"So I guess you're gonna have a lot to deal with when you get home, huh," he says neutrally.

"Yep," she sighed, sinking onto the step next to him. "Let's just hope Tandy and Bucky haven't tanked highway 65 while I was gone."

"Nah, I'm sure your business is fine."

"Teddy'll probably be taking the girls this week, since he hasn't gotten to have Christmas with them yet."

"So maybe I'll see Maddie next weekend or something."

"Yeah. That would be good. You headed back to town?"

"Yep. Just gotta close everything up here and then I'm headed back." After that sledding adventure, he'd probably have to take a long-ass nap first, but she didn't need to know that.

"So I'll see ya soon, then?" She asks tentatively. She reached out and touches his arm. Their eyes met in silent conversation. _I want to see you._ _I need to see you._ She wants to hug him, kiss him, wrap her arms around his neck and say goodbye like she's feeling, but the girls are watching.

"Yeah. When we get home…" Deacon says, clearing his throat. "We should talk. Soon. I mean really talk, Ray. Just us, when the girls aren't around?"

"Sure," she says, puzzled. "We'll do that."

"Alright," he says quietly. "You better get going then, they're waiting."

With a sigh, she squeezes his arm once more, and then gets in the SUV, and puts the key in the ignition.

In the backseat, the girls look melancholy already.

"I wish we didn't have to leave, Mom." Maddie says, sounding sad.

"Me too," she says quietly. "But you know what, girls? Everything is going to be different now, I can promise you that."

As she pulls out of the driveway, Rayna can't help but look in her rear view mirror one last time.

He's still sitting there on the top step. Watching them drive away.

Of all the things she can be leaving behind, her heart is the one thing she least expects.


	5. Chapter 5

**This turned into a super long chapter, so I decided to divide it into two. The next one will be posted pretty soon in the next day or so. **** Thanks for reading, you guys are great! **

###

**Tandy **

Tandy is relieved to get the call from Rayna that she and the girls are on the way home.

"Honey, it is so good to hear your voice," she says, letting out a breath she has probably been holding in since the panicked moment she found out Rayna had disappeared with Maddie and Daphne in tow. "How are you? How are the girls? Did everything go okay?"

On the other end of the phone, Rayna sounds genuinely happy, and less stressed than she has in weeks. "We're great. The girls are great. It was wonderful being up there, exactly what we needed."

So whatever is going on with Deacon and his collection of medication, Tandy realizes, he apparently didn't tell her. Her heart sinks a little. She could kick herself for spending way more time in the last three days than she should have researching liver diseases, because the more she finds out, the more it scares her to death. She hasn't told Rayna yet, but she's already decided not to go back to San Francisco. She knows where she's needed, and it is definitely here.

"Is there still press camped out in front of my house?" Rayna asks hesitantly. "Do I even want to know?"

"Not in front of your house," Tandy says wryly. As she is talking, there's a magazine laying on the desk open in front of her with a picture of Rayna on the front. The headline across the top reads _Queen of Country or Runaway Bride_? "But they're not giving up. The speculation is that either you've run off to Mexico and married a certain ex-guitar player of yours, or you're in some kind of secret rehab. They might not be parked outside your house, but the phones are still ringing off the hook."

Rayna glances at the girls in the rearview mirror, but there is earphones on both of them, and their faces are buried in their I-pads.

"What?" She says to her sister in a quieter tone so they won't overhear. "What kind of rehab would I be in, that's absurd."

"Oh name it. Pills, alcohol, sex addiction…."

"Oh for heaven's sake, I hope you're joking."

"Not even close, honey."

Rayna glances at the girls once more. "Well I'll put a stop to that," she says determined. "Is my office still standing?"

"Of course," Tandy says indignantly. "Things are running along just fine. I'm here right now. Tell the girls I'll meet you at your house in a few hours and I want to hear all about their Christmas."

"Sounds great. It was amazing, but not gonna lie, Tandy, I am sure glad to be comin home."

Tandy hangs up the phone, and stares at it in her hand for a minute. With a few instructions to Bucky for the rest of the day, she leaves the Highway 65 offices. She doesn't head for Rayna's mansion immediately, though. First she drives to Deacon's house. His truck is nowhere in sight.

Scarlett answers the door.

"Figured you'd be back," Scarlett says wryly. "But he's not here."

"I didn't come to see him," Tandy says quietly. "Because I'm pretty sure you can tell me everything I need to know."

################################

When Deacon finally makes it back from the cabin that afternoon, he walks into his house fully expecting the riot act from Scarlett. What he is not expecting is for Rayna's sister to be there sitting on his couch with her. He knows, just by the look on Tandy's face, that she knows.

"Dammit, Scarlett," he says to his niece accusingly, dropping his bag on the floor by the door. "I told you not to say anything, and you tell the last person on earth who should know?"

"Deacon," Scarlett says, holding up her hands. Her eyes are red and puffy, like she's been crying up a storm. "I swear I did not tell her."

"She didn't," Tandy adds. "I saw your pills in the kitchen the other day when I was here, and I came to my own conclusions. Are you sick, Deacon?"

He doesn't have to say it outloud, his silence is all the answer she needs.

Deacon is clearly pissed. "Well it doesn't matter how you found out, it's none of your damn business," he stalks to the front door and yanks it open. "You can go now."

Tandy doesn't move. "Scarlett," she says. "Can you leave us alone for a second, please?"

Scarlett looks reluctant to go, but she heads for the kitchen. "I'll make some tea. Don't let him scare you, he's grumpy but he's harmless."

Deacon raises his eyebrows as Scarlett walks by him, and she gives him a defiant look.

Tandy stands up from the sofa and gathers her purse. "You and I have never really known each other that well, Deacon, or even probably liked each other," she says firmly. "But I do know pushing people away that want to help you isn't going to do you any good. That includes Scarlett. And Rayna."

His shoulders are squared, his stance unbending. "Listen," he says. "It's not really any of your concern, so I'd appreciate if you didn't say anything to anyone. Especially her."

"She's my sister, Deacon," Tandy says, shaking her head sorrowfully. "And she… loves you, whether I want her to or not. And you are my niece's father. That makes it my business."

Deacon's angry frown fades, and he suddenly looks defeated, knowing she's right.

He slams the door, and then slumps in the leather chair with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

The silence is unbearable.

"Scarlett didn't tell me very much," Tandy says cautiously. "How bad is it?"

He sighs heavily. "Honestly? I don't really know yet. They want me to go see this specialist or something….but it's not good. It's looking like I probably need a new liver."

Tandy sighs. They always said imagine the worst and you might be pleasantly surprise. _Well they were wrong,_ she thinks silently. _Sometimes you imagine it, and you are unpleasantly kicked when you're down._ Even she has to admit that Deacon has been kicked down enough times in his life that this is more than just unfair. It is a goddamn tragedy.

"Is that why you haven't said anything to Rayna?"

He gets a stubborn look on his face that Tandy knows all too well, she's seen it on Maddie more than once. Amazing how much of her dad that girl had in her. She was seeing it more and more all the time.

"I don't want Rayna thinking she has to take care of me. She did that for too many years."

"This is different," Tandy says quietly. "And you know it. She needs to know."

"How am I supposed to tell her?" Deacon says, getting angry. "And what am I supposed to tell Maddie?" His voice breaks up a little at the mention of his daughter. "That in the end a year and a half of being her dad is enough? That it'll be okay, because she's got another one?"

Tandy had tears in her eyes now. "You tell Rayna," she said quietly. "And then you both tell Maddie together. And whatever happens, you lean on each other. Because that's what families do." Scarlett came back into the room cautiously then. Tandy slowly walks towards the door and pulls it open, but she turns back.

"Soon," she says, asking for a promise. "Please. You have to. This isn't something you can ask me to keep from her. She's my sister."

Deacon doesn't say anything, and with a sigh, Tandy turns again and walked out.

Scarlett watches from the kitchen doorway, troubled, as Deacon gets up and stalks down the hallway, clearly escaping to his room. She doesn't like that he spends so much time alone. Overthinking things can make a person go stir-crazy. She knows from experience.

Before he disappears, he turns and says to her, looking a lot less angry and a lot more determined. "Hey Scarlett, you still got the name of that doctor?"

"Of course."

"Will you….make that appointment?"

Scarlett's face clearly shows her surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah, really."

"What changed?"

"Guess I just needed a reminder that I got something to fight for."

#################################################

They've been back for three days and Rayna hasn't heard from Deacon. She tries to keep her mind on other things to mask her disappointment. The girls are gone this week, and she's been mostly running highway 65 from her living room, while Tandy takes care of the things that need to be done at the office.

No one knows she's back.

She's still hiding.

"You can't hide forever, Ray" Bucky says now as she sits at the kitchen counter going over the reporters from the month of December on her laptop. "The news stories are just getting worse the longer you stay out of public."

Deacon's same words at the cabin echo in her mind. _You can't hide forever._ He knows her too well.

"I know, you're right," she concedes to Bucky. "Just the thought of dealing with all the press right now…ugh, it does not appeal to me at all. I don't know why in god's name I ever thought I could spend the rest of my life living in Luke's spotlight like that. It's ridiculous."

"Your own spotlight is big enough, honey," Tandy says as she breezes in through the front door then, pulling a stack of papers out of her bag. "I need your signature on every one of these. And by the way, I'm putting my foot down," she said, giving her sister a stern look. "Tomorrow morning, you're going back to the office if we have to rent a tank and plow over every paparazzi in our way."

"And _that_ is why you're my sister," Rayna said with a rueful smile. "You know what, Tandy, will you do me a favor? Run over to Teddy's and pick up the girls? I think I've got an idea, and I want them to be a part of it."

"I'm on it," Tandy says, and like a whirlwind she is gone again. Right about now, she thinks as she leaves, she'd do just about anything to see the smile on her sister's face.

"Alright," Bucky says with raised eyebrows. "What do you want me to do? Is this going to turn into another LP field free concert extravaganza?"

"Absolutely not," Rayna says firmly. "But…I'm thinking…call and get me a band and a set at the Bluebird tonight. Just a few songs."

"Now that," Bucky said, already dialing his phone. "Is a great idea. Good way to let the public know you're alive and, well….not crazy."

"I'll take the girls with me," Rayna says, a plan forming in her mind. "That'll make a nice little statement, right? That the three of us are doing just fine. Maybe they'll back off then."

There's a newspaper laying nearby on the counter that she just notices for the first time. Tandy must have left it earlier. She picks it up, and stares at the picture on the front. Her name doesn't have a picture over it, just a silhouette and a big old question mark. There's a picture of Luke next to that, taken through a long range lens somewhere in Australia. He's in a bar doing shots with a couple pretty little things that look half his age.

"Well, that didn't take long," she mutters in disgust.

"I guess everyone deals with things differently." Bucky says, as he waits on hold.

"Yeah," she says softly, and her mind wanders to Deacon. Three days and not a word. "I guess everyone does."

#################################

It doesn't take Bucky long to set everything up for their little showcase, and when the girls come back with Tandy they are ecstatic to find out they'll be singing with their mom at the Bluebird.

"This is huge," Maddie says excitedly. "Mom, you and Dad started out singing there, didn't you?"

"Yes we did," Rayna says with a soft smile, remembering. "A lot of good things have happened at the Bluebird for both of us."

"C mon," Maddie grabs her sister by the hand. "Let's go practice."

"Hey Maddie," Rayna calls just before they disappear upstairs. "Have you…. talked to Deacon lately?"

"Of course," Maddie says without hesitation. "last night, why?"

"No reason," Rayna says nonchalantly. "Just asking."

The girls are off, already discussing what they should wear, and wondering if any other celebrities will show up.

Biting her lip, Rayna runs her finger down the contact list on her phone, stopping at his name. Call. Not call? Text?

"What's eating at you?" Tandy asks gently, putting an arm around her shoulders.

"I haven't heard from him since we left the cabin," she says to Tandy, staring down at his face on her phone. "God, this is ridiculous. I feel like I'm sixteen all over again, waiting for him to call and say he's parked at the end of the street. Things were so good with us there, he said he wanted us to talk and all…."

"Maybe he's just busy," Tandy says tentatively.

"Maybe," Rayna says, unconvinced. "But he wasn't too busy for Maddie."

Before she can change her mind, she shoots him a message. _The girls and I are going to do a few songs at the Bluebird tonight. We would love for you to be there. _

Ten minutes later, there has been no response.

Tandy gently takes the phone out of her hand. "I'm sure he'll come," she says. "Now let's go pick out something for you to wear to the show later, alright?"

She can't help but think of an earlier show at the Bluebird, one she had missed when she decided another man's ring belonged on her finger instead of Deacon's. It killed her now, knowing how much that must have hurt him that she didn't show up.

"Yeah," she said, forcing a smile and following Tandy to the stairs. "I'm sure he'll come."


	6. Chapter 6

**Deacon (earlier same day)**

It is still dark when they walk into the clinic at Vanderbilt hospital, not even a trace of the sun yet. He almost turns the truck around half a dozen times on the way there, but Scarlett is giving him the evil eye, reading his thoughts from her post in the passenger seat as if to say _don't you dare._

He can't imagine the kind of beat-down she gave the nurse on the phone that they got him in so quickly. Of all the things a person could say about his niece, they sure couldn't say she didn't have guts.

"This is the biggest, most advanced hepatology clinic in the state of Tennessee," Scarlett says, trying to sound optimistic.

"Hepa-what?"

"Hepatology," she repeats. "the branch of medicine that deals specifically with the management of diseases of the liver."

"I don't even wanna know how you knew that."

_I'd probably be better off jumping off this damn bridge and getting it over with_, he thinks as they cross the river.

By noon, Scarlett's eternal optimism is already driving him crazy.

"You know, you didn't have to come," he says again as they sit in a different waiting room for yet another appointment. It's making his head swim, the blood draws and every kind of poke and scan he can imagine. He hates hospitals. They smell like misery, and death, and remind him of all the times when he was a boy that his mom had driven him to the emergency room, always had to get the story ready in the car on the way there. _Don't tell em it was your daddy, okay? Just say you fell off your bike, _Caroline would say nervously as he sat there in the passenger seat, broken or bleeding. And he never told, knowing she'd be the one to suffer if he did.

"Yeah, I did," Scarlett said, not even looking up from her magazine. "Someone's gotta keep you in line."

"I think I can handle that on my own."

"Mmmm hmmmm."

He's got a hell of a headache.

"So after we're done here today and we know more…you're gonna tell her, right?"

Rayna. She meant Rayna.

The look on his face says it all.

The look on Scarlett's face says exactly what she thinks of his decision-making skills at the moment, and the fact that he's been acting like a petulant little kid all day who doesn't want a shot at the doctor's office.

After another six hours of seeing 3 different doctors and getting poked and scanned so many times he is ready to take the damn syringe and stab the nurse herself and see how much _she_ likes it, Deacon finally sees the specialist in charge of his team. Apparently he has a "team" now. Because that's what they give you to try and keep you alive. It takes a whole team.

He tries real hard to understand what this lady behind a desk in a white coat is trying to tell him about his life, but all those damn medical terms are lost on him. The only thing he gets that she's telling him is his liver is definitely junk.

"Just give it to me in English," he says, leaning forward on his elbows. "What do I gotta do to…beat this thing?"

"Well, the medication we have you on right now, while it's going to keep you feeling better, it's only going to work for awhile. We can try chemo or radiation, but this isn't going to just go away with drugs and treatments," Dr. Abbott says, not mincing words. "It'll prolong it, but the fact is that you definitely need a transplant. There is no way to reverse liver cirrhosis, even if you didn't have the issue of cancerous cells. And we need to do it soon, before the cancer spreads to other organs. You're lucky in that aspect that we caught it early."

_Yeah_, he thinks. _This is what you call lucky. _

He wonders what she tells people when they don't catch it early. _You're screwed and it's your own fault? _

Probably not_. _

"That other stuff you said, like…radiation or whatever…" Scarlett asks cautiously. "What are the side effects?"

The doctor rattles off a long list, and Scarlett's stomach drops because she knows what Deacon will say before he even opens his mouth.

"Well, we ain't doin that."

"That option is completely up to you," the doctor says. "Like I said, it wouldn't cure it, but it would keep it from spreading."

"Maybe you should just think about it for a little bit before you say no," Scarlett says quickly. "You don't know how long you're going to have to wait for a transplant, it might be-."

Deacon silences her with a Look. "I said. I'm not doing it. If all I got is six months, I sure as hell ain't gonna spend it sicker than a dog taking a bunch of toxic crap that ain't even gonna help."

Scarlett closes her eyes and sighs. Damn, the man is stubborn as a mule. She turns back to the lady doctor, who is trying to look sympathetic, but the look on her face says this is nothing new. She probably deals with patients like this every day. "A transplant? How does that work?"

"We put your uncle on the national registry, and he receives a grade. If his condition worsens and the grade falls, he moves higher up on the list," Dr. Abbott explains.

_Nice how they talk about me like I'm not even here_, Deacon thinks sardonically.

"Or there's always a chance someone close to you could be a good match for being a living donor."

Scarlett perks up at the sound of that. "Really? I didn't know that was possible. How does that work?"

"Well the liver is a regenerative organ. A person who is a good donor match could give your uncle a part of their liver, and within a few months, both of your livers would regrow themselves back to normal size." Dr. Abbott goes into a long list of the first round of tests required for living donors, but Deacon interrupts her before she's halfway done.

"We're not doing that either," he says firmly. "I sure as hell am not letting anyone I care about put themselves at risk for me."

"Deacon," Scarlett says with a sigh. "You could at least listen to what she has to say."

"I don't need to hear anymore," he says, rising to his feet. "Just put me on that….national list or whatever, and I'll hope like hell that works. I'll be outside when you're done." He stalks out of the office.

The doctor looks at Scarlett with raised eyebrows.

"I don't care what he says," Scarlett says, looking her right in the eye. "I want to be tested first."

#############################

**Rayna**

"Alright girls, are you ready for this?" She asks as they wait in the back hallway for the band to finish warming up. They don't even look a bit nervous. Born performers, these girls of hers.

Maddie and Daphne are beyond excited, in their pretty dresses and with their hair all done up. The three of them had spent the rest of the afternoon at the salon together: fancy hair, manis and pedis, the entire works.

_We need to do more of that_, Rayna thinks, looking at them now. They're growing up too fast. As proud as she is of Highway 65, these two beauties are the greatest thing she's ever done in her life.

"You called Dad, right?" Maddie says, holding onto her guitar. Her eyes keep scanning the people gathering at the tables. "I don't see him."

"Well, I sent him a message," Rayna says, forcing a smile. "I'm sure he'll be here if he can."

She herself cannot keep her eyes from traveling through the crowd.

_Deacon, where are you? _

It bothers her to no end that she hasn't heard from him since they came back. But then again, this is real. They are back to real life, not playing house snowbound in the woods.

Tandy hugs the girls. "You look beautiful! I'm going to go sit by your dad over there and take video. Knock em dead, okay?"

Tandy takes her place in the front row next to Teddy. Next to her, an empty chair waits.

Rayna keeps watching the door, even as the manager introduces them and they take the small stage. _He'll show up,_ she thinks_. He has to. Even if he's angry at me for some reason, it's too important to the girls. _

The crowd thinks they are getting their regular Thursday night "in the round", so they are surprised and delighted when the Queen of Country herself walks out with her beautiful daughters.

"Well some of you know my girls and I have had a very…eventful few weeks." Rayna says when the applause has died down. "But we're home now, and this seems like the best place to get back into the swing of things. The Bluebird will always feel like home to us."

She looks over at Maddie, who steps up shyly to the microphone and speaks. "We wrote this first song with our mom, and now we want to share it with you. It's called "I'll Be"."

_When darkness falls upon your heart and soul _

_ I'll be the light that shines for you _

_ When you forget how beautiful you are _

_ I'll be there to remind you _

_ When you can't find your way _

_ I'll find my way to you _

_ When troubles come around _

_ I will come to you _

_ I'll be your shelter when you need someone to lean on _

_ Be your shelter when you need someone to see you through _

_ I'll be there to carry you _

_ I'll be there_

There is not a dry eye in the house by the time they are done with the song, and it earns the girls a much deserved standing ovation.

"Thank you so much," Rayna says, feeling more than a little emotional herself. This is home. This is where she started, right here in this stage with Deacon. It's so right to be here, and yet so wrong that he isn't on that stage next to them. "I am so proud of my girls, and I'm sure you'll be seeing them on this stage again in the future."

"We better!" Someone in the crowd calls out.

They sing two more songs, a more upbeat old one of Rayna's called "My Good Side", and then she lets Maddie and Daphne have the stage to themselves to sing "Believing", the song Maddie and Deacon wrote together.

She stands off to the side and watches the girls own the stage like they've been doing this their whole lives. The last verse of that song hits her particularly hard.

_My fears are safe here _

_ Held in your hands _

_ When I'm broken, you put me back together again. _

_ All that I once was _

_ All I could be _

_ When I've forgotten _

_ Baby, you remind me. _

Rayna tears her eyes away from the girls for a second, but the chair next to Tandy is still empty. It makes her chest ache, and her eyes burn, and she has to excuse herself for a minute to get some air.

Standing outside behind the building, she leans against the brick wall, staring up at the full moon and the clear winter night sky, and trying to regain her composure. The cold air makes the tears on her face sting like tiny needles.

_So this is what this feels like_, she thinks.

##############################

It takes Scarlett almost two hours before she finds Deacon on roof of the hospital, in the dimly lit courtyard. He's sitting in a metal patio chair with his arms crossed and his boots up on the bistro table, staring up at the night sky and the full moon, not the least bit bothered by the fact that it's January and about 30 degrees out.

"There you are," she say, clearly ticked off. "I've been over every inch of this godforsaken place looking for you. You're outside. Did you ever hear of turning on your damn phone?"

It's right there in front of him on the table. Turned off.

He doesn't move.

Exasperated, Scarlett reaches over and turns it on. She shoves it in front of his face as the buzzer signaling unread messages started going crazy. Hospital policy meant they'd both had their phones off all day in the building. "Rayna and the girls were playing at the Bluebird tonight. If you wouldn't have run off, maybe we could have made the end, but it's too late now."

He blinks, as if just coming out of a haze. "What?"

"You heard me. She texted me two hours ago and asked me where you were, so I'm sure she probably did you as well. I guess it was a big deal. There's a video getting crazy hits on youtube."

Deacon scrolls through his messages on his phone, and sure enough there's one from Rayna, timed hours earlier. _The girls and I are playing a few songs at the Bluebird tonight. We'd really like you to be there. _He swears under his breath, feeling like the biggest jerk on earth. It was a huge deal, the girls getting to sing at the Bluebird for the first time. He should have been there.

When she doesn't get a response, Scarlett walks to the courtyard door that leads back into the building. "I'll be in the truck. You got 15 minutes or I'm leavin you here. Believe it or not, I've had enough of this place for today too."

_She would_, he thinks wryly.

With a sigh, he stares up at the moon for one second longer, and gets to his feet. "Scarlett, wait. I'm….sorry. I know I've been a pain in the ass all day, and I'm just…."

"Scared?"

"Yeah," he says, his voice low. "Scared."

Scarlett knows how hard it is for him to admit that. For years she's watched Deacon be the rock everyone else leans on. Having to lean on someone else for a change is far out of his comfort zone.

"You know," Scarlett says quietly. "It's only a death sentence if you let it be. And you don't have to go through it alone. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Now let's get the hell out of here."

##########################

Deacon sits in the passenger seat as Scarlett drives, the Youtube video from the show tonight playing on his phone. The sweet bright voices of three of his favorite girls in the world are the only thing that can lighten up the somber cloud hanging over his head, even if only for a few minutes.

Rayna and the girls are amazing in every song, and it hurts his heart that he missed it. "They're so good, Scar. They'll be on stage like Ray some day. No doubt."

He wonders if he will be around to see it.

"That they are," Scarlett says, keeping her eyes trained forward. "Maybe you should call her. Rayna, I mean. Just so she knows you didn't miss it on purpose."

The video ends and he runs his finger over her face in the contacts list.

"It's pretty late, already. I'll just wait til tomorrow."

He knows he isn't going to be able to stand in front of Rayna again without telling her. Today made it all real. It isn't a "could have or might have" thing anymore. It's a diagnosis, and a plan, and a "team", and a fight he has to face, whether he wants to or not.

'You're gonna tell her then?"

"Yeah," he says, clearing his throat and staring out the window. "I'm gonna tell her. Tomorrow."

#################################

It's not until the next afternoon when she's up to her elbows in craziness at the office that Rayna finally sees Deacon's number appear on her phone.

For a second, her temper flares. _Maybe I shouldn't even answer_, she thinks.

She stares at the buzzing phone so long that eventually it stops ringing.

A minute later her text message alert is going off.

_Rayna. I know you have your phone glued to your hand. Pick up please._

It is ringing again. Irritated, she jabs at the answer button.

"Hello, Deacon," she says evenly. "I'm surprised you still remember how to use a phone."

"Hey," he said, his voice low, not at all surprised by her pissy tone. He deserves it. "Can you meet me?"

She looks at the two people impatiently waiting for her to end the call, and the day's planner in front of her that said she had a band coming in in an hour for an audition, and Daphne had dance class at 3:30.

"Sure, how about 6:30?" she says, balancing the phone on her shoulder as she signs for the FedEx guy.

"Ray," he says. "I know you're really busy, but it kinda has to be now."

It took him all day to make this phone call. There's no going back now.

She pauses at the tone in his voice, caught offguard. Something is wrong. She has known this for weeks, the way he's been acting. Something that has nothing to do with Luke or the Rolling Stone article, or her broken engagement. She knows Deacon, and she knows when something is wrong.

For a second she wonders if this is it. He's finally going to tell her that he's moved on, that's there's someone else and it's too late. That's why he didn't show up, that's why he's keeping her at a distance. Maybe he has really moved on.

The buzz of office activity blurs around her, and she only hears Deacon's voice.

"Where do you want to meet?"

#################################

From where Rayna parks her truck, she can his silhouette leaning against the bridge right where she knows he'll be, exactly halfway across.

Somehow she knows this is their now or never moment. Whatever he wants to tell her, either it's going to bring them back together once and for all….or it's going to break them for good.

Her feet carry her, and she hardly realizes she's moving until suddenly she's standing in front of him, hands in the pockets of her white wool coat, shivering against the cold winter air that blows off the river.

Rayna can't help but think how many times they've done this dance before. Standing in front of each other, trying to push away what has always been lingering there, and unable to do it. But there is nothing in the way now, no spouses, no engagement rings, nothing. This is their chance to get it right, she thinks, if they can figure out how.

"Hey," he says quietly. "Thanks for coming."

She forgets to be mad at him for a second, forgets everything she wants to say, because when he looks at her, the way Deacon has always looked at her, with his heart in his eyes, the rest of the world just fades away.

Deacon reaches down and runs his fingers over the initials on the faded padlock attached to a spindle of the bridge. "Still here," he says quietly.

"Yep," she says softly. "For eternity. Like us, right?"

"Yeah. Like us."

Because they've always been an "us", and they both know it.

Rayna knew before she came that the lock was still there. She knows it's there because she's passed by it hundreds of times. She's drive over this bridge in her car. She's walked by it years ago with her babies in strollers and stopped briefly to run her fingers across the letters scratched into the metal. She's walked by in on a summer day with her then-husband, and not dared to even stray her eyes to its place for a second, because Teddy most definitely did not know it existed. There's a couple other locks here now, but theirs is the oldest.

It's tarnished and weathered from the bright gold color it used to be, but their initials are still there, R + D= E Every time she walks by she thinks it won't be there, that some city worker will have cut it away and tossed it out with the trash, but every time it is still there.

"You remember when we put this here?" Deacon asks.

"Of course," Rayna says with a knowing little smile. "You gave me that lock for my 18th birthday. I thought you were crazy when I opened up that box, until you brought me here. We locked it on the bridge and threw the key in together."

"I wanted to think up something real special," he says, his voice gravelly. "Because I knew, Ray. Even back then, I knew it was you."

She'd known too, since she was sixteen years old. _I swear I'm gonna love that man for the rest of my life,_ she'd told her sister. Tandy had laughed at her. _There'll be lots of boys, Rayna. Don't fall in love with the first one that comes along._ But it was too late, because she already had. She'd been in love with Deacon Claybourne from the second she laid eyes on him.

"Sometimes I think you should have done it," Deacon says before he can stop himself from the thought that has been on his mind for days now. "You should have married Luke. He could have given you everything you want. You'd never have to doubt him."

Guilt plagues her. "Don't say that," she says, feeling sick. "Because you know it isn't true."

He leans against the railing on his elbows, staring down at the swirling dark water. "Can you tell the girls I'm sorry I missed the Bluebird last night? I feel awful. I should have been there."

"So why weren't you?" She asks quietly. "Was that…some kind of way to get back at me or something? For not showing up at your NPR performance?"

"No, Ray, that wasn't it at all." Deacon takes both of her hands in his, tangling their fingers together, holding on tight. Holding on for dear life.

The look on his face is so distressed, so awful, that Rayna feels like her heart is standing on the ledge of the highest downtown building, ready to fall. "Deacon," she says more sharply than she intends. "You're starting to scare me a little. What the _hell_ is going on?"

"I've been trying to find a way to tell you for awhile…."

"Is there someone else?" She says, her heart getting a little closer to that ledge. "Is that it?" She's heard rumors he had something going on with a backup singer during the tour, and as much as that hurts, she has no right to say a damn thing about it. She'd been engaged to someone else.

He gives her a smile that's so sad, so broken. "Don't even think that. You know there could never be anyone else for me. Not like this."

"Then just say it, Deacon. Whatever it is."

He closes his eyes and says the last three words she ever expects to hear. "I have cancer."

"What?" She whispers, stunned beyond belief, absolutely floored, falling. Her grip on his hands is so tight now, her knuckles are turning white, but it's the only thing holding her up.

"I'm sick, Ray."

"But how….you….you're fine. I mean you're standing in front of me, and you're fine."

But he isn't fine. Even now, she can see everything she's been trying to deny. He looks tired. Worn out. Thinner. She'd noticed that at the cabin already, and figured it was just the stress of being on tour with Luke.

He echoes her thoughts. "I'm not fine."

"I… don't even know what to ask first," she murmurs, trying to shake the fog that had settled in her head. "Can we…I think I need to sit down."

They walk to the end of the bridge, and still she clings to that hand tightly, suddenly afraid to let go, that he'll slip away when she's not looking.

Rayna sinks onto the bench, and tries to think like the I-can-face-anything woman she's supposed to be as he sits down next to her. She can't even look at him, because she knows the moment she does she'll lose it completely. So they just sit there, both staring straight ahead as they speak.

"What is it?" She asks.

"I got sick in Memphis," Deacon says quietly. "And they ran a bunch of tests. Spent the day at the hospital yesterday getting more done. It's my liver, Ray. Go figure."

"That's why you didn't make it to the Bluebird. Because you were at the hospital."

"Yep. Poked enough holes in me to make swiss cheese."

She closes her eyes at the stab of pain that hit her heart, and tries not to give into to the fear that was quickly taking over. "Well how bad it is? I mean there must be like treatments or something."

"There's some stuff," he says. "But it'll only delay it. I need a transplant."

"How…. long do you have to find one?"

"Not much," he admits "Maybe six months. This is it, Ray. They always said my drinkin was gonna kill me, and they were right."

"You said Memphis," she tries to digest that info. "So for a month already. You knew at Christmas and you didn't tell me. When we were…at the cabin?"

His face is pained. "You were so happy. And the girls….it was Christmas. I couldn't ruin that. I'm just glad we got to spend it together."

"Dammit, Deacon," she whispers. He'd been suffering through knowing by himself.

"You should have told me right away." She finally drags her eyes to his, and then the tears start falling. It is impossible to hold them back.

"This," he says with tears in his own eyes. "Sitting here telling you this is the hardest thing I've ever done, Ray."

And now they'll have to tell Maddie, Rayna realizes, her heart breaking into a few thousand pieces more as she thinks of all those years he'd missed. He hadn't had nearly enough time to be her dad. It seemed so cruel and unfair to think about, she almost couldn't bear it.

"We're gonna fight this, Deacon." she says, trying to sound a hell of a lot more determined than she is feeling. "You can beat it."

He looks so defeated. "I want to believe that. But they don't put you up too high on the list if you did it to yourself by being a drunk."

She reaches over and lays a hand across his cheek. "You will," she whispers. "You can't leave me. I need you too much. I've always needed you, Deacon. Sometimes I just…forgot for a little while. Can you forgive me for that?"

He swallows hard around the lump in his throat, taking her hands in his again, tangling their fingers together. "You know,' he says. "If it gets so bad you wanna…walk away, I'll get it. If you wanna walk off this bridge right now and not look back… because I don't want you to feel like you have to take care of me, Rayna. I won't let you do that again."

"Don't you say that," she says, almost getting angry. "Don't you dare even think that. I _love you_, Deacon. I'll take care of you if I want to, you don't get to decide."

The pain in his eyes breaks her, and suddenly they are in each other's arms completely letting go, their kisses mixing with salty tears and pain and so many regrets, holding onto each other for dear life.

"Don't leave me," she whispers, laying her head against his shoulder. "Promise me you won't leave me."

His arms around her tighten and he buries his face in her hair. "I promise," he says, his voice quiet next to her ear.

But it's one promise he doesn't know if he can keep.

**#####The song I borrowed for the Bluebird is "I'll Be" by Reba McIntyre. Thanks for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

It seems like forever that they sit there on that cold stone bench, until Deacon realizes Rayna is shivering in his arms, and it is starting to snow, large white flakes drifting down around them, sticking to their coats.

"Come on," he says softly, pulling her up. "It's freezing out here."

They walk back to her truck, hand in hand. Her fingers are like ice, but his are warm.

"Does anyone else know you're…sick?" Rayna asks quietly as she leans against the side of her truck.

She knows to some level the shock hasn't set it yet. It will set in later, when she's alone. When she can _allow _it to set in, because right now it is all she can do not to lose it in front of him.

"Just Scarlett," Deacon says. "I'd like to keep it that way for now. I know we need to tell Maddie soon…I'm just not ready for that yet."

_Well, and Tandy knows,_ he thinks. But he figures the discussion of how Tandy found out is better left between Rayna and her sister.

Rayna isn't ready for that conversation with Maddie yet either, and the fear and devastation that she knows it is going to bring to their daughter's life. She can't bear the thought.

Maddie has been through so much already, it all seems so unfair.

"What happens now?" she whispers.

"What happens now," Deacon rubs the lone tear on her cheek away with his thumb. "is that you go back to your office, and then go home to the girls, and let me worry about the rest. This is my battle, not yours."

_Impossible_, she thinks. There's too many unanswered questions.

"What about…us? Where does this leave us? Are we going to let something else get between us again?"

He'd always swore there was not a thing on earth that could every completely get between him and Rayna, and now this disease is chasing them down like a freight train, threatening to completely derail the chance for forever they finally have.

"I just want you to have some time to think about all this, Ray, and what it all means."

"I don't need time to think about anything," Rayna says with quiet determination. "We wasted too much time already, Deacon. Let's not waste anymore."

His eyes are pained, and once again they are having one of those conversations with no words, as only two souls who have loved each other as long as they have know how to do.

_I'm not letting you go_

He sighs tiredly. In a way, it is a weight lifted off his shoulders that she knows now and it's not a secret. She's already mentioned second opinions, and researching alternative treatment options, just like he knew she would. She wouldn't be Ray if she didn't. He loves her so much for that, and hates it at the same time.

But even Rayna can't change the unchangeable, and the odds that are stacked a mile high against him.

Her heart literally aches standing there in front of him, wanting to be in the safety of his arms again so badly. So close and yet he still feels so far away. She knows Deacon loves her. He always has. He's never had to say it for her to know. She just wishes he'd let her in.

He takes her face in both hands, kisses her forehead and says only one word. "Go."

_He's wrong_, she thinks as she climbs into her truck.

It's her battle too.

###################################

**Deacon**

After he watches Rayna drive away, he doesn't get in his truck and do the same.

He walks back down the bridge, runs his hand over the beloved, tarnished padlock once more and leans against the railing, thinks about that "E" on there, and what that means. He thinks about everything they've been through, over the last 26 years, of all those tumultuous years Rayna had stood by him when he sure as hell hadn't deserved it. They'd survived all that, and now the sins of his past were coming back to haunt him, to rip them apart again.

It kills him, thinking about how he'd today watched the fear replace the hope in Rayna's eyes that he'd seen there the entire time they were at the cabin. Rayna is tough as nails, and the most unflappable person he's ever known, but today he saw it. She was scared.

_She deserves better_, he thinks. Someone who is gonna be around in a year, or five, or twenty. Someone whose past wasn't continually trying to run them down.

He stares down at the swirling icy water. It'd be cold. And deep. At least _it'd be fast,_ he thinks. _And over with_. No dragging it out, no months of the people he loves watching him suffer.

Hesitantly he puts one boot on the first metal rung of the bridge, and one on the second, and he closes his eyes.

The phone in his hand buzzes, startling him. He opens his eyes and looks down at it.

Her face, her number. Her message. _Please don't push me away. In sickness and in health, babe. I love you no matter what. _

It has always been that way, and whether he thinks he deserves it or not, Rayna loves him. He has never doubted this. It's why he never let go, why he never gave up on them, even when she was married to Teddy, then engaged to someone else.

With a shaky sigh, he takes his foot down, and steps back, shocked and ashamed that his thoughts had even gone there, to such an easy way out. He owes it to her to fight, no matter how hard and painful it is.

Once again, Rayna saves him.

###############################

She drives back to the office. Numb. Trying to keep her mind on the logistics of everything, trying to keep her heart from failing her. "He'll be fine," she says out loud several times. In the silence of the truck, no one answers her, nobody reassures.

"Are you okay?" Bucky asks when she stalks into Highway 65 like a woman on a mission, her heels clicking hard on the wooden floor. Rayna is always a woman on a mission, but this is different. "You seem kind of….edgy."

"Bucky," she says as she sits at her desk and opens her laptop. "That is the one question you are not allowed to ask me today. Please. I don't want to be bothered by y'all for the rest of the afternoon unless something is on fire. Close the door on your way out."

Bucky sighs, but he leaves the room, pulling the door shut behind him. He doesn't think this is a good time to mention the summons that came by courier while she was gone. Luke Wheeler has decided to sue her for "damages" from the defunct wedding, to the tune of half of a million dollars.

Rayna doesn't want to do it, but her fingers immediately hit the google search button, for everything she can find about conditions of the liver.

It's confusing, disheartening.

It is terrifying.

But she is Rayna Jaymes, and he is Deacon Claybourne, and they've been to hell and back several times already together, and survived. She doesn't intent to let the two of them fold up like a tent now.

With shaking hands, she dials Scarlett's number.

"Hey, Rayna," Scarlett doesn't seemed too surprised to hear from her. Like she's been waiting.

"Scarlett," Rayna says quietly. "He told me."

Scarlett's sigh of relief is definitely loud enough to be heard. "Thank god."

"I need to know what to do. I need to know everything you know, the names of his doctors, what medicine they have him on. I want to know all of it."

The conversation with Scarlett soothes her jangled nerves a bit, and she hangs up with a better idea of what they are all fighting against.

And she tries to do as he suggested. She picks the girls up from school, takes Daphne to her dance lesson, forces herself to act like the world didn't just fall out from under her. Again. But the girls know. They're quiet in the car on the way to their father's later, they know something is wrong, and it pains her as they solemnly hug her and get out of the car in front of Teddy's house.

"Bye, Mommy." Daphne says, smacking a kiss on her cheek. "Hope you have a nice relaxing weekend."

"Bye, Mom," Maddie gives her an extra tight hug. "See you on Monday."

Her eyes blur as she watches them run up the sidewalk. Funny how you can forget how precious time is, until it is suddenly slipping away, she thinks sadly. You think you have all the time in the world, and one day forever suddenly turns into six months. Or less.

Rayna keeps it together pretty well until she finally walks in the safety of her own house at 6:30 that night.

Tandy is there, already curled up on the couch with her I-pad in front of her, sipping her first glass of wine of the evening. "Hey, where are the girls? I thought you were keeping them tonight?"

"I gave them one more night at Teddy's," Rayna says in a halting voice. "Tandy…."

Tandy looks up, startled, and sees Rayna's distressed face, worried eyes.

_He told her_, she thinks. She is relieved, and heartbroken for her sister at the same time.

"Deacon's sick," Rayna can hardly get the words out as she sinks onto the sofa next to her sister.

"Um….sick?"

"His liver," she says, each word painful. "His liver is failing. What am I going to do, Tandy? What am I going to tell my daughters?"

"Oh honey," Tandy is chewing her bottom lip. "That's awful. What can I do?"

She wants to cry, and scream, and throw things. But mostly, all she wants is a hug.

Tandy slowly, slowly puts down the I-pad, the glass of wine. Avoiding her sister's eyes.

Something is off with her, Rayna realizes, and it hits her.

"You already know," she murmurs, getting to her feet, startled.

Tandy winces noticeably. "I completely found out by accident," she admits.

"When?"

She lets her breath out slowly. "The day after the wedding was supposed to happen, when you took the girls to the cabin. I went to his house, looking for you, and I saw his medication."

"You knew for a month," Rayna's eyes light up with anger. "He could _die_, Tandy. You didn't think that was important enough to tell me? This isn't some random stranger on the street. This is Deacon. My daughter's _father_."

"No," Tandy says quickly, reaching out a hand to touch her sister's shoulder. "He didn't want me to, and I was just trying to respect his wishes-."

Rayna brushes her hand off. "Get out."

"Honey, I really don't think you should be alone," Tandy says softly, trying again.

"I said _get out_, Tandy."

Tandy's eyes are blurred with unshed tears as she grabs her purse and walks to the front door. "I know you're hurting," she says tentatively. "And I understand. When you need me, I'll be here."

Rayna says nothing. When the door closes behind her sister, she slumps onto the sofa and finally lets the tears fall she's been holding in all afternoon, and the sobs rack her body until she is physically and emotionally exhausted.

###############################

She only means to finish off Tandy's glass of wine that she left on the coffee table, but it goes down easily, and soothes her nerves slightly.

_Well no wonder people turn into alcoholics_, she thinks as she pours herself the rest of the bottle. She has never been much of a drinker. Anything past two glasses of wine is enough to make her more than a little tipsy and result in a killer headache the next morning.

Before she knows it, that bottle is empty too, and she stumbles down to the wine cellar to get another, knowing exactly which one she is looking for.

It just has a plain label with their names scratched on it with a marker and the place and date Napa Valley, CA 1989.

That bottle has been hidden away for just about 20 years now.

They'd always said they were going to save it for their 50th anniversary.

"What the hell," she mutters, searching through a kitchen drawer for a corkscrew. "It's not like he's going to drink it anyway. If I drink it myself now, or 30 years from now, what's the damn difference?"

_Victory_, she thinks, satisfied, as she pops the cork and pours herself another glass.

The message comes that night at 10:30, when she is three sheets to the wind and completely unhinged, wrapped up in her blankets on the couch surrounded by Kleenex and old picture albums, two empty wine bottles on the table in front of her. On the stereo, "No One will Ever Love You" has been playing on repeat for hours.

She scoops up her phone at the buzz.

_You okay? _

Ironic, she thinks, tears flowing, _he's_ worried about _her._

Typical Deacon.

_No,_ she types back. _Wish you were here. Really need you. _

_ The girls? _

_ They're at Teddy's. _

_ Gimme 10 minutes _

_############################# _

Deacon is shocked as hell when he walks into Rayna's living room and sees the empty wine bottles and Rayna's inebriated state.

"You been drinkin?"

"No, Deacon," she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "I just opened it up to smell it."

He picks up the bottle from California, and stares down at it, feeling sad, remembering that side trip after a tour date. "I didn't know you still had this after all those years."

"We said 50 years," she murmurs. "I thought I better drink it just in case we don't make it that long."

Deacon sighs and kneels down in front of her, gently takes the wine glass out of her hand and sets it on the table. "I think you need to get some sleep, darlin. It's been a long crappy day. And I of all people don't need to tell you that drinkin doesn't solve anything."

"Come on now," she says, having the grace to look a little embarrassed. "I didn't have that much. I was just trying to…relax a little."

He raises his eyebrows, gesturing towards the empty bottles, smirking at her. "Did it work?"

"I think so," Rayna says, leaning her head to one side and staring down at him intently.

"What," he says, his face curving up into a half-smile. "Why you lookin at me like that? Seein double or what?"

Before she can stop herself, she reaches out and lays a hand across his cheek. "I just love your smile, that's all," she said softly. "I always have." Buzzed or not, she's drowning in his eyes. The way he looks at her….no one else has ever made her feel the things Deacon does when he looks at her. He owns her, body and soul. He always has.

"Ray," he says quietly, clearly amused. "I think we need to get you to bed."

"You know what," she says, reaching out her hands to pull him in by the lapels of his shirt and pressing her mouth against his gently. "Deacon, I think that's the best idea you've had all day."

A few sweet kisses later, and they have somehow ended up all tangled up in each other's arms on the floor in front of the sofa. They are both clearly set on fire, the urgency between them growing at an unstoppable pace.

"Please," she whispers, yanking at the buttons of his shirt. "Just hold me, Deacon. I miss you loving me."

He closes his eyes, and leans his forehead against hers. "You're drunk as a skunk, Ray. It wouldn't be right."

She frowned.

"Don't give me those pout-eyes, cuz I'm not gonna change my mind."

"I bet I can make you," she said, with a soft little smile, moving her hand to his belt buckle.

"Uh uh," he says with a smile, catching her hand in his wrist. "But what I am gonna do, is carry you upstairs," he says, scooping her up in his arms and heading for the stairs. "And tuck you in. And clean up the…evidence you left in here."

"You taking care of me, now?" Rayna says as they head down the hall to her bedroom suite and he deposits her on her king size bed. Suddenly she isn't wine-drunk anymore, she's just tired. So tired. Emotionally. Physically. She's so tired of having to fight so damn hard for what she wants all the time.

"Yep," he says firmly, pulling the covers over her.

"Don't leave," she says, her voice catching a little. "Please Deacon, just…don't leave. I swear I won't jump you, just…I just don't want to be alone. And I bet you don't either."

He's a goner for those pleading eyes. With a heavy sigh, he sits down on the edge of the bed and kicks off his boots, and then crawls into bed with her on top of the blankets. "This is crazy," he mutters. "I better be getting a sainthood title after this."

She smiles, content as she slips an arm around his waist and closes her eyes. "Now this is much better."

"Yeah," he says softly, unable to hide a smile of his own and unable to resist stealing one more kiss. "It is, isn't it?"

"You ever finish that song you were working on at the cabin?" Rayna murmurs.

"Yeah," he says. "I finished it."

She raises her head and looks at him, then gestures towards the guitar in the corner. "Will you play it for me?"

"I don't know, Ray. It's pretty personal. Think I'm saving it for myself."

Rayna looks the slightest bit sad. "I miss this," she admits. "More than anything. Laying in bed with you….listening to you play. I miss falling asleep this way."

"Me too," he admits.

With a sigh, he gets up once more and retrieves the guitar.

Rayna lays with her head against his shoulder as his fingers glide over the strings softly. By the end of the first verse, she is already asleep, tears drying on her cheeks, but he keeps playing anyway.

_I like fast cars and sharp dreams _

_ Chased a lot of crazy things _

_ Left behind my share of broken pieces _

_ This morning I turned 46, _

_ when you just remember half of it _

_ You wonder how you outlived Hank and Jesus _

_I put the rage in a river, the roll in a thunder _

_ But You kept me from goin under _

_ When that current got too heavy _

_ Always thought Id be a heap of metal _

_ In a cloud of dust, foot stuck to the pedal _

_ Sold for parts like a junkyard rusted-out Chevy _

_ Fear, Ive had none _

_ What the hell made you wanna love _

_ A man who was gonna die young _

_ Call it intuition or call it crazy _

_ Just thought by now I'd be pushin up daisies _

_ But I'll gladly stick around if we're together _

As he stops playing at looks down at her, asleep against his shoulder, she sighs in her sleep and burrows in tighter against his side. "Night, Ray," he whispers, and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead before he sings the last few lines softly.

_So baby when you bow your head tonight _

_ Can you tell the Lord I've change my mind? _

_ And with you I'd like to live _

_ Forever _

**The song I borrowed is "A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young", by Eric Church. Thanks for reading! **


	8. Chapter 8

Rayna wakes from a deep and sated sleep to find Deacon putting a tray on the nightstand with breakfast and coffee.

"Oh, so this _wasn't_ a dream," she says with a sleepy smile.

"Mornin," he sits on the edge of the bed next to her. "How you feelin?"

"Like I never want to see another glass of wine again," she admits, putting a hand to her forehead.

"Not surprised."

She leans up on her elbows and presses a kiss to his mouth. "Thank you for taking such good care of me."

"This is the way it should be," Deacon says somberly. "Me takin care of you. Always."

A bit of sadness shows in her eyes, worry over their conversation at the bridge yesterday, over the realization of what it means. He knows it's probably reflected in his own eyes, and tries his damnest not to let it show. But at least she knows now, and there's no secrets between them.

"Don't look like that," he whispers. "Don't think about any of it right now, okay? Just one day at a time."

"Okay," she forces a tiny smile, and pulls him in closer.

"You got anywhere to be today?" He murmurs between kisses.

"Picking up the girls later. But not for hours," she says breathlessly as they roll back onto the bed together.

"Good," he says, with a satisfied smile. "Me neither."

###########################################

"You know, we really should get moving," Rayna says with a contented sigh quite awhile later when they are still in her bed, all wrapped up in her mountains of blankets and tangled in each other.

"We should…."

"You first."

Neither one of them moves, though.

It is the most amazing thing, she thinks, secretly marveling. She has almost forgotten how love can do that to you, make you forget everything else. Time just slips away, and you can care less about anything except that warm fuzzy feeling of melting into each other.

She watches him, intently, tracing the lines of his handsome face with her thumb.

"Whatcha thinkin?"

"I think you should come and stay with us," she says softly.

His eyes are hesitant.

"I know what you're gonna say," she whispers. "And this has nothing to do with me taking care of you. It's completely selfish reasons, like….I want to spend every minute of every day with you," her voice catches a little. "And the girls. I want the girls to get to spend time with you."

"I'll think about it," he says quietly, leaning forward to kiss her again.

"Wouldn't it be nice to wake up like this every morning?"

_Yeah_, he thinks. It sure as hell would. For the rest of their lives.

########################################

After a good-bye that lingers far too long, Deacon leaves Rayna and drives across town to the mayor's house to pick up Maddie for a few hours as previously arranged.

Maddie is watching for him, comes out of the house immediately and hops into the front seat of his truck, but she's more quiet than usual as they drive.

"Everything alright?"

"Yeah. It's good."

"So you still want to go over to that holiday festival you mentioned?"

Maddie shakes her head slowly. "Can we just hang out at your house for the afternoon? Just practice, maybe? Or watch some tv?"

"Sure," he said, his eyebrows furrowing. "If that's what you want to do?"

"Yeah. I'm just…not much in the mood for crowds."

"You sure you're okay?"

"Sure," she says, but it clearly is not.

"If something is bothering you, you know you can tell me. I'm not much good at guessing like your mom is," he adds as he turns the opposite direction back towards his own house.

He's not too good at all this yet, figuring out teenage mood swings and all, but he's been trying like hell.

"Well I've just been thinking, you know….with my mom not getting married to Luke and all…"

Maddie looks like she's trying to find the right words. "Are you and Mom gonna be….together now?"

Well that was the question he was least prepared for.

He can see she's waiting for him to answer, and as hard as she tries to hide it, there's hope in Maddie's eyes that he's going to say yes and everything will be fine.

"Uh…well, what makes you ask that?" he asks carefully.

"I don't know," she shrugs and stares out the window. "I guess I just…still wish we were a family. When we were at the cabin and all together….it was really nice."

It makes his heart hurt. "It was, huh?"

"Yeah,"…. she sighs heavily.

"Maddie," he says. "We _are_ a family. Even if it don't look like everyone else's. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Okay?"

"Okay." She seems a little more relaxed after that.

"Tell you what," he says, reaching over to tug the braid in her hair playfully. "Your mom said she and Daphne were going ice skating this afternoon. Maybe we can catch up with them. You wanna do that instead?"

Maddie looks doubtful. "Do you know how to skate?"

"I think I can manage," he fibs, knowing he's probably going to make a complete idiot of himself. He'd do anything to keep that smile on her face, though, for as long as he can.

"Sure," she says. "That would be fun."

"Good," he says, pleased. "Let's go back to my house for a bit then, and round up some skates. I think Scarlett's got some in the garage that'll fit you."

He shoots Rayna a message and they make plans to meet at the ice rink downtown in a few hours.

Maddie seems happier now, chattering on and on about an open mic she is planning on playing next week, her friends, school…. Thank god, Deacon thinks to himself not for the first time, that she's not one of those teenage girls who spends all her time hanging out at the mall and is not too cool to hang out with her dad. Not yet, at least.

He smiles, listening to her complain about her mom trying to keep her "a little girl", even though her fifteenth birthday is coming up in a few months.

"Aw, give her a little slack," he says, grinning. "It's hard for mamas, watching their babies grow up. Dads too."

"Right." Maddie grins too, and it cuts into him a little, thinking about not being there. He hadn't been there for the first 13 years, and now, what if this was all they had? This little slice of time in the middle to cram in a lifetime full of memories. It's so unbalanced and so unfair.

She'll always be his little girl.

"Can I tell you something?" Deacon says before they get out of the truck at the outdoor ice rink. He can see Daphne and Rayna waiting, Daphne clinging excitedly to her mom's hand and jumping up and down waving a mittened hand.

"What?"

"That question you asked me before….We're tryin' real hard to figure out how to be. Is that enough of an answer for now?"

"Yeah," Maddie says, looking over to where her mom and sister are waiting. He can see a little smile on the edges of her mouth. "That's enough."

#######################################

"I can't believe Maddie convinced you to do this," Rayna says, sitting on the bench next to him and watching him lace up the ancient hockey skates he'd found in his garage. "I didn't even know you knew how to skate."

"I don't," he confesses, tying off the other skate. "Don't tell her. I just didn't want her to be disappointed."

In the middle of the ice in front of them, the girls are already expertly turning circles and swinging each other around by the arms playing "crack the whip" with a few friends and laughing.

"Well I don't either," Rayna says, double checking her laces and wobbling as she gets to her feet. "I never was exactly the most athletic person."

"We all know that," he smirks.

She reaches over and smacks him on the knee. "You watch it, mister. If I fall, I'm taking you down with me."

They make it around the rink one whole time before ending up as a heap on the ice, which has the girls doubled over in laughter.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this," Rayna says confidently an hour later as she passes him taking a break on the bench.

Deacon hates to tell her she isn't getting the hang of it at all, she's just being held up by the girls, but he gives her a thumbs up and snaps another picture with his phone of the three of them.

"Come on," Maddie holds out her hand to him. "One more round with us?"

"Think I'm hanging up my skates, sweetheart," he says shaking his head with a smile. "How bout some hot chocolate?"

"Yes!" Daphne cheers.

"You keep dragging your mama in a few more circles," he says, laughing. "I'll get it."

"Hey!" Rayna protests. "I'm doin' just fine."

The girls look at each other, and roll their eyes.

He's standing in line to get the girls the hot chocolate they'd requested, when the person in front of him with two little girls turns around to leave, and it's Megan.

She is clearly surprised to see him as well, considering the last time they'd seen each other it hadn't been under very good circumstances.

"Uh…hey. How are you?"

"I'm good," he says, forcing a smile. "Real good." Never mind mentioning that whole terminal illness part.

"Funny running into you here. I brought my nieces," she gestured to the two small girls in front of her, and handing them their cups.

"Yeah, we brought the girls…" he points to Maddie and Daphne still circling the ice.

"I saw you were on tour with Luke Wheeler. Congrats."

"He was a real pain in the ass, to be honest," Deacon says, not mincing words. "But it's good. Things are…good."

Megan smiles. "Good. That's good."

He didn't think this could be any more awkward if they tried as he places his order with the girl in the booth and waits, and then Rayna appears at his elbow, skates removed and safely back on booted feet.

Her expression is clearly one of surprise also. "Oh hey," she says politely when she sees Megan standing next to him. "Nice to see you again."

"You too."

Deacon hands her the steaming cups, and she kisses his cheek. "I'll take this to the girls," and excuses herself.

Megan watches her go, a slightly amused expression on her face.

"So you two are together, huh?"

"Uh…yeah," Deacon says casually. "Workin on it, I guess you could say."

"Not surprised," she says. "I'm happy for you, Deacon. I always knew."

He relaxes a little, and he can see that she means it. "Yeah, well...I better get back over there."

"Good to see you."

"You too."

###############################

"Well that was awkward." Rayna couldn't help but comment when he slipped onto the bench next to her where she watched the girls and gestured for them to come in.

"Just an old friend, Ray."

"Old girlfriend. Who slept with my ex-husband," she reminds dryly.

He winces. "I was tryin not to think about that part."

Rayna gets real quiet for a second. "Can I ask you something?"

He raises his eyebrows and looks at her. It makes him realize how much they still have not discussed, how much there is to talk about. And who knows how much time.

"Did you love her?"

He'd thought about that way too much in those first few weeks, after him and Megan's relationship had ended in such a disastrous way. "I cared about her," he says. "I was grateful to her for being there for me. I guess I thought I did but….it was never like this. You know?"

"Yeah," she says, leaning over to kiss him sweetly. "I know."

"I could ask you the same question."

About Luke, she knows he is asking.

"I guess I could give you the same answer," she says slowly. "I thought I did, but….I think I just loved everything I thought he meant…I thought I was looking for something, and it turns out I had it all along. You know?"

"Yeah," he says with a little smile, reaching over to squeeze her hand. "I know."

The girls approach then, their cheeks and noses red, both of them laughing.

Rayna smiles, handing over the steaming cups. "Drink up," she says. "And we should get going."

"I'm starving," Daphne declares. "Can we get pizza?"

"You're always hungry," Maddie says, shaking her head.

"Well I'm hungry too," Deacon adds. "I vote for pizza. Delivery."

"Yes!" Daphne puts her fist in the air.

"Pizza it is," Rayna says as the girls walk ahead of them. She looks over at Deacon, the way he watches them, and she cherishes the sweetness of this entire day they've had together. _This is the way it should be, _she thinks_. Always. This is what it's like to be a family. _

He doesn't know it, but she's having that blood test in a few days, to see if she's a match to be a donor. She'd scheduled it immediately after talking to Scarlett yesterday. Scarlett's already had hers, although the results haven't come back yet. She knows Deacon will be pissed as all get-out if he finds out either one of them was tested, but that's too bad. If she has her way, she'll have every person in this whole damn town tested until they get a match.

Watching him with the girls today, it's just reinforced what she already knows.

She wants to spend the rest of her life with this man.

And she'll do whatever necessary to make sure that's a good long many years yet.

"Meet you at home?" she says to him quietly.

He kinda likes the sound of that.

"Yeah," he says. "Meet you at home."

###############################

Over takeout pizza boxes on the living room coffee table, and a few movies on the tv, Rayna watches him. He looks tired, though trying to act for the sake of the girls that he's fine.

She thinks of his words yesterday. _I'm not fine, Rayna_.

It hits her, like a cold fist to the heart, thinking about how worn out he'd looked at the cabin already. He _isn't_ fine. This is really happening, and it's happening fast.

"Hey," she says as soon as the girls hug him goodnight and head up to bed. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he says, lifting his arm for her to sit down next to him.

Rayna grimaces as she settles against his shoulder and leans into him. That skating adventure had taken a lot out of her too. "Not gonna lie," she says. "I'm gonna have bruises tomorrow where there should not be bruises from all that fallin' down."

"Me too. It was fun though," he says with a tired smile, leaning his head back against the couch. "Think maybe I can just crash on the couch here tonight? I don't want to give the girls the wrong idea, but I'm beat to be driving, and I kinda got a headache."

"Of course," she says, concerned. "I told you, Deacon. I want you here. Every night and every morning."

He gives her a little smile, and his eyes close. "Don't tempt me, Ray."

The next morning, when she wakes up early to make coffee, she walks into the living room and he's asleep on the sofa, still with his boots on, much in the same position she left him when she reluctantly went upstairs to sleep alone.

"Good morning," she says softly, leaning over to kiss him.

His eyes drift open, but barely. "Hey," he says, his throat dry.

She frowns, touching his face in alarm. "You're really hot, are you feeling okay?"

"Not really," Deacon admits, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Something's wrong. Think you might need to take me to the hospital, Ray."

He looks pale, his face clammy.

Panic grips her. "I'm calling 911."

"No don't," he says, reaching for her hand weakly. "Don't scare the girls. Just drive me in, okay?"

"Deacon…."

"Please, Ray."

"Okay," she says, trying not to show how scared to death she is. "Will you be okay for a few minutes? I just need to throw on some clothes and grab my purse."

"The girls…."

"The girls are still asleep," she says softly. "Just lay here, okay? And I'll be back in a few."

He closes his eyes and doesn't say anything else.

Not knowing what else to do, Rayna calls her sister. She hadn't talked to Tandy since she'd asked her to leave after their argument last night. But now, she needs her.

She bites her lip, dialing.

"Listen," she says quickly. "I need to take Deacon to the hospital. There's something…well, I'm not sure what's wrong, but he's burning up with fever. Can you come stay with the girls? They're still asleep. I don't want to have them wake up and no one is here."

No hesitation, no questions.

"I'll be right over," Tandy says, and true to her word, she's walking in the front door in ten minutes.

Rayna can hardly look at her, but it needs to be said.

"I'm sorry," she says as they stand outside her car after struggling to help Deacon get in the front seat. "I was…upset, and scared, and…."

"Forget it," Tandy says firmly, reaching out and hugging her tight. "Just get going, okay? And let me know how he is. I'll take care of the girls."

"Thank you," she says gratefully.

######################################

They admit Deacon through the E.R. and run a bunch of tests before determining he's just got a nasty virus, made worse by his weakened immune system. Dehydration isn't helping either, and he gets a lecture from the doctor when she finds out he's lost 10 lbs in the last couple weeks.

He doesn't want to say it in front of Rayna, but the pain in his side makes eating anything pretty much impossible some days, and even eating pizza with the girls tonight had ended up with him quietly throwing up in the bathroom an hour later.

They spend all day in the hospital before deciding to admit him overnight, and medication they put in his veins has him looking and feeling better by the end of the day, and sleeping restfully.

Rayna sits next to his bed, and holds his hand and tries not to cry, and silently prays to god that this isn't what their life is going to turn into. She isn't ready to lose him like this yet, not when she just got him back.

She's done this before. Sat by his bed and held his hand while they pumped booze and pills out of his stomach. But this is different.

This isn't a choice. No matter what he says, she refuses to believe that this is some kind of punishment for his younger years. It's nothing but bad luck and awful circumstances, and she swears if God lets her keep him, she will do whatever she can to help him fight this.

The doctor comes later that night to read his charts, and then she calls Rayna out in the hallway.

"That test you wanted to do?" she says. "We could do it right now if you'd like. It's a five minute blood panel."

"Really?" Rayna looks back at Deacon through the open door. Asleep peacefully.

"Yes," the doctor nods. "Just go right down to the lab in 135 and they'll do it."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"I won't mince words with you," Dr. Abbott says with a serious expression. "We need to find him a match. Soon. He's not going to get any better. You understand that, right?"

She swallows hard. Amazing how in 48 hours your entire world could be turned upside down. "Yes," she said quietly. "I understand."

"Good," Dr. Abbott nods, satisfied. "Now let me walk you down to the lab."

True to her word, the test takes a mere five minutes, and Rayna is back in his room, next to his bed holding his hand before he ever wakes.

####################################

**Tandy**

She doesn't know what to tell the girls, and they are clearly surprised Saturday morning to wake up and find Mom and Deacon replaced by Aunt Tandy.

"They just went off to do something today," Tandy says carefully as she pours bowls of cereal. "So I told your mom I'd take you back over to your dad's house for her. That okay?"

Daphne's eyes widen excitedly. "They're on a date, aren't they?"

Maddie nudges her. "Don't be dumb. Where would they go on a date at 10 am?"

But she wonders too.

"Maybe it's a breakfast date," Daphne argues.

"Now don't you worry about it," Tandy says cheerfully. "Just eat your cereal."

She waits until the girls have retreated to their rooms to get dressed before calling Rayna for an update.

Rayna runs over the details of what she knows, and then she says without hesitation. "I am having that test, Tandy. On Monday, if I can't get it done sooner."

Tandy sighs. "I supposed you're not going to tell him."

"Not until I know if I'm a match or not. No use starting an argument if there's no need."

"So anyone can be a potential match?" Tandy asks carefully.

"Yes," Rayna says, clearly distracted. "It's mostly about blood type, I think. I'm sorry, Tandy. I have to go back in. I'll keep you updated."

The test, Tandy knows, was to check if Rayna would be a good candidate for being a living donor. Scarlett had told her she'd been tested as well, but her mother Beverly was out of the question, with all the psychiatric meds she was on.

Tandy knows there is no way in hell if Rayna is a match, Deacon would ever let her risk her own health by doing it anyway, and her heart hurts for her sister, for him, for the girls. She wishes there was some way to do something to help.

_Anyone can be a match_, Rayna's words echo in her mind.

With shaky hands, she glances at the stairs to make sure the girls are not within hearing distance, and then she dials Scarlett's number.


	9. Chapter 9

Rayna stands outside in the hallway next to the doorway of his hospital room, taking another sip of the worst coffee she's ever had in her life, and checking her messages on her phone.

She needs a minute to breathe a little.

Deacon's last two days in the hospital has been a wake-up call of epic proportions. _This is really_ _happening_, she thinks again now. Even hearing him say it that day on the bridge, it still didn't feel real.

He's better now. They have adjusted his medication, and give him something in an IV that brings him back to life a little, and Rayna can tell he's starting to feel better because he's grouchy and ornery and ready to go home. It is a stark comparison to when she brought him in and he was so weak, he could hardly stand.

Scarlett appears hurrying down the hallway then, and Rayna is relieved to see his niece's face.

"Rayna, I'm so sorry it took me so long to get your messages," she says apologetically. "I was out of town. How is he?"

"So glad to see you," Rayna says as she hugs her tight. "He's…well…not too happy right now. With anyone. We're waiting for the doctor to come back in. They said it was just a virus, but his immune system is pretty low right now. Antibiotics seem to be doing the trick."

Scarlett glances at the open door to Deacon's room. "You had the test, right?" She says in a quieter voice.

"Yes," Rayna says. "Didn't hear anything yet."

"I did," Scarlett says, looking disappointed. "They called yesterday, I'm not a match. My bloodtype is wrong."

"They'll find one," Rayna says, trying to sound optimistic. "They have to."

"Well," Scarlett says with a sigh, gesturing towards the door. "Might as well get this over with. "

"Go on in, you can tell him I'll be back in a minute."

Rayna leans against the wall and listens ruefully as she hears Scarlett say to Deacon, "I'd hug you but you look like you might bite."

She tries not to dwell on the fact that Scarlett is not a match, but a little piece of hope slides away. She'd been so sure that since Scarlett was a blood relative, she'd be his best chance, and the reality of "what it" suddenly overwhelms her and she realizes the hand holding her cup of bitter coffee is shaking.

_Breathe_, she tells herself silently. _Just breathe. They'll find someone._

She struggles to regain her composure enough to walk back into the room, when she hears a voice that makes her blood run cold.

"Mom? What are you doing here?"

Rayna looks up into the questioning, unassuming face of their fourteen year old, who has no idea that her world is about to be turned upside down. Again.

Rayna quickly swipes at her eyes and pastes a smile on her face to hide the inward panic. She is not ready for this. Not now, here. "Hi, honey," she says, reaching out to give Maddie a hug. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"I'm visiting a friend that had surgery," Maddie says warily. "Dad dropped me off, he's coming back in an hour. I was looking for the giftshop and I got lost."

"Oh, that sounds nice," Rayna said with all the false cheerfulness she can muster, slipping an arm around Maddie's shoulders and steering her away from the open door as quickly as she can without looking obvious. "Why don't I help you find it? Let's take a-."

But they are interrupted by the sound of Deacon's pissed off baritone voice echoing out through the open door. "I ain't staying in here another night. So either you can take this stuff out of my arm and let me go home, or I'm doing it myself!"

Maddie's eyes widen, and she looks at her mother accusingly and pushes past her into the room.

###############################

Deacon is caught completely offguard when he's in the middle of a hot-tempered argument with Scarlett and his doctor, and Maddie abruptly appears into the doorway, Rayna on her heels.

Rayna shoots him a helpless look. _I'm sorry._

Maddie is stunned to see him as the one in the hospital bed, and he watches with a sinking heart as she takes in the medical equipment, the doctor, and him.

The doctor shoots Rayna a sympathetic look. "I'll give you some time, and come back later."

"Thank you," Rayna says as she leaves.

"What happened?" Maddie asks, her young face etched with worry and her eyes only on her dad. "Can I hug you, is it okay?"

"Course you can," Deacon says, holding out an arm, trying hard to swallow around the lump growing in his throat as Maddie hugs him fiercely. He locks eyes with Rayna over Maddie's shoulder, and they read each other's thoughts. Rayna's expression is pained, and he can see she's holding back tears as they silently agree.

_We need to tell her. _

Scarlett watches the whole scene, and her heart breaks for the three of them, how terribly, horribly unfair this is. She wants so badly to be a match.

"I'm gonna go," she says quietly to Deacon. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Thanks," he manages, Maddie still hugging him.

Rayna reaches out before she goes and puts a hand on her arm. "I'll call you later?"

"I'd appreciate that."

Rayna closes the door behind Scarlett, and then turns back to where Maddie waits expectantly, impatiently pacing. She is worried, her glance shooting back and forth between the two of her parents.

"What is going on?" she demands, her voice raising a notch. "Why is in Dad here? And why didn't anyone tell me?"

Rayna sits on the edge of the hospital bed, and pulls Maddie down next to her.

Deacon reaches for one of her hands, and Rayna reaches for the other.

"There's something we need to tell you," he says, clearing his throat. "I'm sick, Maddie. That's why I'm here."

Maddie's face still looks confused. "Like the flu or a virus something? When are they sending you home?"

"I hope today," he says, "but Maddie, it's not….the flu," Deacon says as he searches for the right words, and they stick in his throat like he swallowed sandpaper.

Rayna can see how he's struggling, and she reaches for his hand and squeezes it hard. "Honey," she says softly. "Deacon has cancer in his liver."

They can both see how the realization of the words hit Maddie like a ton of bricks. She is old enough to know way too much about what that word means. And she is old enough to know people die from it every day.

She is old enough to be scared of what the word means.

"But you're going to get better, right?" Maddie whispers. "It's the kind that gets better?"

"Your dad needs a liver transplant," Rayna says, forcing every word, trying to sound positive and knowing she needs to be strong for both of them. "And we're going to do everything we can to get him one."

"What happens if you don't get one?"

The expression on Deacon's face is enough of an answer, and Maddie's pretty face crumples. "What? No…how can that be? That's not fair!"

Deacon's face crumbles as well, and Rayna feels the tears slide down her own face.

It _isn't_ fair. Not one bit.

"C'mere," he says in a choked up voice, and pulls them both again him and hugs em as tight as he can. "Everything's gonna be fine. You got each other to hold onto. And Daphne. No matter what, okay? No matter what. "

Rayna's heart hurts. She never wants to let either of them go.

After a little while, Maddie's sobs subside to sniffles, and she pulls away from the two of them, gets up off of the bed and walks to the window, staring out at the skyline.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions," Rayna says, her own eyes red and puffy as she walks over and smooths Maddie's hair. "And we'll do our best to answer them. It's okay to be scared, or worried, or cry about it."

"I don't. I don't want to know any of it. I don't want to know it, or hear it, cuz it's not true and I don't believe it," Maddie says in a flat voice. "And it's total crap that neither of you told me." She's trying to stay mad, but a batch fresh tears overflows, and she turns and runs out of the room.

"Maddie, wait!" Deacon watches, frustrated that he is attached to all this medical junk and can't get out of that damn bed to go after her, but Rayna does.

##########################

Maddie has a head start and she's much faster, and by the time Rayna gets into the hallway, their daughter has disappeared from sight.

Feeling defeated, she pulls her cell phone from her back pocket and dials Teddy's number.

"Are you picking Maddie up? From visiting her friend here at the hospital?"

"Yeah I'm waiting downstairs and she hasn't shown up yet," Teddy says, puzzled. "Is everything alright?"

"No," Rayna said quietly. "It's not. Can you come up for a few minutes? I'm on the third floor. I ran into Maddie, and she's very upset. We need to talk."

"You're at the hospital? Rayna, what on earth is going on?"

"Please, Teddy. Just meet me in the third floor lobby, and I'll explain."

##############################

Rayna is waiting, pacing when Teddy gets off the elevator with his phone in his hand, looking stressed and annoyed. "What the hell is going on? I keep calling Maddie and she isn't answering her phone."

Her hands are shaking again, and she doesn't know if it's nerves or just too much caffeine. She's had enough of that coffee in the last two days to keep her awake for a straight week.

"Something happened," she says carefully. She doesn't know what Deacon will think of her telling Teddy, but it seems like the right thing to do. They have the same daughter. And right now, that daughter was going to need all three of them more than ever.

Teddy's brow furrows in confusion. "Rayna, I'm not getting it here. Is Maddie okay?"

"It's not Maddie," she says quietly. "It's Deacon. Deacon's sick, Teddy. He's been here for the last two days, and of all the days Maddie decided to visit her friend…well, she found out and she's pretty upset. She ran off and I can't find her," she sinks into a vinyl covered chair, and rubs her temples with fingers tips.

The surprise on Teddy's face is obvious. "Sorry to hear that."

_Am I supposed to ask_, he wonders. Over the last few months, things have become much more amicable between him and Deacon Claybourne. They're probably never going to be buddies, but it is much easier to be civil and get along, especially for Maddie's sake, with the constant going back and forth between three different houses.

It has taken Teddy a long time for him to accept that Deacon is going to stay a part of Maddie's life, but now he will readily admit his daughter is lucky enough to have two dads that love her like crazy, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Maddie is the best parts of both of them.

It also helps that there is a bit of unspoken agreement between him and Deacon that neither one of them has ever thought Rayna should be marrying Luke Wheeler. Teddy had been secretly relieved when she called it off. Everything about it seemed wrong to him. He might not be married to Rayna anymore, but he knows her well enough to know that Wheeler's exhorbitant, in-the-spotlight lifestyle isn't her.

Teddy also knows her well enough to know where her heart is. Deacon has always had her, even when she was married to him, even when she was too stubborn to admit it. No guy, not him, or Liam McGuiness, or even Luke, was ever going to be to Rayna what Deacon was. He thought Luke Wheeler was a fool for not seeing that right from the beginning.

So he asks. Because he cares about Rayna, and because Maddie loves her other dad. Because it seems like the right thing to do. "What happened? Is he alright?"

"He's not alright," Rayna says quietly, staring at the cup in her hands. "He's got cancer, Teddy. He needs a liver transplant. Maddie found out by accident today, that's why she's so upset."

Teddy sinks onto a chair next to her, shocked. "Rayna, I'm so sorry to hear that. Is there….anything I can do?"

She shakes her head, giving him a sad smile. "All we can do right now is hope they find a match for a living donor transplant, either from a friend or relative, or they put him on the national list."

"They can do that? How does that work?"

"It's a lot of testing and waiting, and then if the person makes it through all that, they can donate a piece of their liver," Rayna says. "It's a lot of medical terms I really can't make sense of yet, but I'm trying."

She looks overwhelmed, Teddy thinks. Exhausted. He wonders how long they've known. The girls had been so happy when they came home from being at the cabin after Christmas.

_I think Mom and Deacon are going to get back together_, Maddie had confided in him hesitantly.

He hadn't been much surprised to hear it.

"I just wanted to let you know, because of Maddie and all," Rayna continues. "We might be needing some extra time with the girls. I just…" her voice breaks up a little. "I want Maddie to get to spend as much time with him as possible. Just in case. And don't mention anything to Daphne until I can talk to her."

"Of course," Teddy says, his mind still trying to wrap his head around what she was saying, and how upset Maddie must be. "Whatever you need."

"A miracle," Rayna says wearily. "We need a miracle."

"So….you were tested?" Teddy asks carefully. His own father may have been a well-loved previous mayor of Nashville, but Richard Conrad also been a closet drunk, and they'd all watched him waste away, too stubborn to ever admit he had a problem, until he had died of liver failure when Teddy was 17. It had been one of the most painful things he had ever witnessed, and it would stick with him always.

"I was," Rayna nods. "Scarlett also, but she wasn't a match. Anyone can be tested. I'm ready to put out a billboard and have the whole damn town volunteer to best tested, but Deacon would have a fit. He's so damn stubborn. Dr. Abbott suggested a few treatment options, but so far I can't get him to agree to anything."

The phone in Teddy's hand buzzes, and he looks down at it. "That's Maddie," he says. "I better go find her."

"Yes, and I should get back," Rayna says with a sigh as she stands up. "I'll pick the girls up tomorrow afternoon? Let me know how Maddie is later. I'd like to come with you, but I feel like right now I should give her some space. She's very angry with us."

"Sounds fine," Teddy says. "I'll take care of her. Just worry about being here. Again, Rayna. I'm so sorry to hear."

"Thanks."

Rayna walks off back down the hallway, and Teddy watches her go, the information she's given him racing through his mind, thinking of watching his own father waste away in a hospital bed. He'd be damned if he is going to let Maddie go through that without at least knowing he'd tried to help.

Maddie shoots him a text. _I'm in the gift shop. Where are you?_

_Be right there. _

As he waits in the elevator, he scrolls to the internet search engine on his phone, looking for a directory for the hepatology department at Vanderbilt hospital. In a moment, he has what he needs, and with just slight hesitation, he takes a deep breath and hits the call number.

"Can you connect me with Dr. Abbott's office, please? I need to make an appointment."

##################################

When Rayna gets back to Deacon's room, he has already been unhooked from the machines, gotten dressed, and is sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on his boots while the doctor rattles off a list of instructions that she can tell he's not really listening to.

"Now I'm letting you go against medical advice," Dr. Abbott says sternly. "You could have used another night of antibiotics, but I'm sending you home with a prescription. You need to go home and take it easy. I don't want to see you back in here in two days because you didn't listen."

"I'll make sure of it," Rayna says, accepting the stack of papers from her hand. "Thank you so much, Doctor."

"Do you want a nurse to bring a wheelchair?"

Deacon stands up with a scowl on his face, then stalks past both of them and out of the hospital room.

Rayna sighs exasperatedly.

"Well I guess he's walking out on his own," the doctor says dryly. "Good luck, Rayna. I know this is hard, but don't give up on him."

Rayna gives her a shaky smile. "I'm 26 years too late for giving up on him now."

#########################################

Rayna intends to drive Deacon back to her house and hold him hostage there as long as possible, but he clearly has other ideas.

"Just drive me back to my place," he says after they've left the hospital lot behind and turned onto the parkway.

"What?" Rayna stares at him. "I mean, I thought….."

He stares out the window, and she can see as hard as he's still trying to push her away, it's not because he wants to, it's because he feels like he has to. She is damn determined not to let that happen.

Despite what he said, she sails right by the turn for his house, and sneaks a peek at him, staring broodingly out the window.

"This ain't the way to my house, Ray."

"I know," she says calmly. "It's the way to mine."

"Then pull over, and I'll walk."

"I'm not pulling over. And you can't walk. You just got out of the hospital, Deacon, and it's 40 degrees out. You don't even have a coat."

"Alright," he says stubbornly. "Fine."

She's at the stop sign, and damn that man if he doesn't just open the truck door and get out and start walking.

"What the hell-." Stunned, Rayna pulls over to the side of the road, throws the truck into park, and gets out.

And then she realizes where they're standing, their surroundings, and she knows he does at the same time.

They both stand there staring up at the street markers that read Granny White Pk and Battlefield Dr, and Rayna wonders if this is a sign somehow. Maybe now would be a good time to pray for a miracle. They'd gotten a miracle once already at this intersection. They'd both lived.

"You ever think about what happened here?" he says quietly.

"Sometimes," she admits. "But we survived, Deacon. And we're gonna survive this."

Deacon walks away from her and slumps on the park bench with his face in his hands, running his fingers through his hair, and after a minute she sits down next to him, putting a tentative hand on his knee.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine, Ray," he says tiredly. "I know I've been a jackass the last two days, and I'm sorry."

"You know," she says softly. "It doesn't make you weak to let anyone help you, babe. It just makes you human."

But it feels that way to him. She can see it in his face. Deacon has never wanted to be a person who depends on anyone else. For anything. And he is damned determined not to do it now.

"It killed me, seeing Maddie cry today," he says in a low voice. "I wish she didn't have to watch me go through any of this. Both of you."

"I know. Me too. Teddy called before. He says she's pretty upset. They'll be home tomorrow. And I guess we'll have to tell Daphne," she says quietly.

His face looks pained. "She's okay, though? Maddie? "

"Not really," Rayna sighed. "He says she's locked in her room and won't come out."

"I hate that she found out this way."

"Well you need to take better care of yourself, like that doctor told you. It'll make it easier on her if she knows you're trying. And if we're honest with her."

"You're right," he says. "I know you're right."

"Did you think any more about what I said? About coming to stay with us…for awhile? Until you get better?"

_For awhile_, she thinks. But that could be interpreted as a few different ways. Until he gets better. Or until….well she couldn't think about the alternative right now. _Forever,_ she thinks. _Forever would be good, too._

He still doesn't look too enthused. "I know you, Ray. And you hovering over me telling me what to eat and when to take my medicine is probably going to drive us both crazy. Scarlett doing it is bad enough."

Rayna rolls her eyes, but she can't help smiling, because she knows he's probably right. "Is that the only thing you're concerned about?"

He looks up at that street sign again. They'd gotten a second chance here. Maybe asking for a third one is pushing it, he wonders.

"I've been thinking about it a lot lately. f I don't…make it through all this," he says, squinting up at the cloudy gray winter sky, unable to look her in the eye. "I don't want you to feel like you can't find someone else, you know? Or find someone new. Preferably not Luke, though. Or anyone remotely like him."

He is trying to make light of it, and Rayna sure as hell is not laughing.

She stares at him, stunned. "What? Is that a joke? That better be a joke, Deacon Claybourne."

"Ray, I just…"

"I love you," Rayna says softly. "And only you. And whatever happens….this…it'll never be this with anyone else."

"I just don't want you to be alone," he says, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against hers. "You got a lot of livin to do yet."

It might have been the most painful and unselfish thing any person had ever said to her, and she knows how hard it is for him to say it. It breaks her heart into a thousand pieces all over again.

A lone tear escapes down her cheek. "I'm not gonna be alone, Deacon. Because you're going to beat this. We are. And if we don't…I don't want anyone else."

A deep sigh racks his shoulders.

"You might change your mind."

"I won't."

It's cold, and he doesn't have a coat, but Rayna slips her arms around his neck and hugs him close, and he isn't cold in the least as she kisses him fervently, trying to make all those doubts go away.

"Come home with me, Deacon," she murmurs.

Despite everything, he smiles against her mouth. "You're pretty damn convincing."

"I sure as hell am, and don't you forget it. Think about it," she says cajoling, her voice quiet next to his ear. "Every night, babe. Every morning."

"Nothing changes. No hovering."

She gives him an innocent look. "Absolutely."

"Okay then," he says reluctantly. "If that's really what you want."

"It's really what I want," Rayna stands up then, pulls him back towards where she parked the truck, and this time Deacon doesn't resist, his fingers tangled in hers. Everything about him has always been tangled up in Rayna.

He finds himself glancing at the street sign one more time. _Just one more chance,_ he thinks. _One more and I swear we'll get it right this time._

"Come on, Deacon." Rayna says softly, as though like always she is reading his thoughts. She's good at that. She knows him, better than anyone ever has. "Let's go home."


	10. Chapter 10

**Teddy**

He brings the girls back to Rayna's late Sunday afternoon as planned.

Daphne immediately jumps out of the car and heads for the front door, like always two steps ahead of him, happy to be back to her mother's, oblivious to everything that's going on with Rayna and Deacon.

Maddie in contrast doesn't move from the front seat, brooding, her eyes locked on the light blue truck parked in Rayna's front circle.

"You should talk to your mom," Teddy clears his throat. "It's important, Maddie. Don't hold it all in."

Maddie doesn't say a word, just rolls her eyes, opens the door and gets out. She slams it hard and stomps up the sidewalk.

With a heavy sigh, Teddy grabs their backpacks from behind the seat, and follows the girls up to the house where he used to live.

"My girls! I'm so glad y'all are home!" Rayna meets them with open arms.

"Hi, Mommy, is Deacon here?" Daphne says anxiously as she hugs Rayna. "I saw his truck outside."

"He sure is," Deacon says with an easy smile as he comes out of the living room. "Come on in the kitchen, your mom just made some cookies."

"Double chocolate chip?"

"You're favorite."

Teddy watches. He watches as Maddie stalks by Rayna and Deacon without even looking at them, and heads for the stairs, and sees the look that passes between the two of them. Rayna, worried. Deacon, hurt that he tries to hide. He watches as Daphne launches herself towards Deacon for a hug, and clings to his arm, the two of them heading for the kitchen and that promise of cookies. Once this would have bothered him, but it is reassuring now. Deacon never treats Teddy's daughter any different than his own.

It was different with Luke and Maddie. He'd seen this from the beginning. Luke might have been good to Maddie, but it was obvious what he really regarded her as- a link between Rayna and Deacon that could never be broken. Maddie had never said it, but Teddy knew she felt it, and it was hurtful.

Maddie hadn't been the only one relieved when that particular wedding was called off.

He watches his older daughter's departing figure and exchanges an apologetic glance with Rayna. "She's still real upset. I tried to talk to her, but she didn't want to discuss it and I didn't think I should push the issue."

"Thanks," Rayna says with a sigh. "We'll deal with it."

Teddy feels he should say something, or ask how things are, but he doesn't. It's not his life anymore, just like it's not his house he's standing in. He's done his part, done what he can. Really, that's all a person can do. And he knows in his heart, even with everything they've been through, Rayna would do the same for him. He hopes the best for her and the family she's trying to make.

"Well…take care," he says hesitantly, and he turns and walks out. He glances at the cell phone in his hand as he walks back down the sidewalk towards his car. He's still waiting for that yes or no call.

##################################

With a heavy heart, Rayna heads for the kitchen. All the cookies in the world won't make up for what they have to do next.

Daphne takes the news about Deacon being sick better than they expect, but not without a few tears and a barrage of questions as she sits at the kitchen counter, and they take the chairs on both sides of her.

She is quiet, thinking. "Is that why Maddie's so mad?"

"Well," Rayna says, subdued. "Maddie's just having a real hard time right now and she's pretty sad, so we're going to give her some space, okay? Until she feels like talking. But we can still let her know how much we love her."

Daphne nods, and turns to look at Deacon. "Are you going to get better?" she asks tentatively.

The look on her face just kills him, the way she's trying to be so brave, trying not to cry, but a few tears slip out anyway. "I hope so," he says honestly. "But I don't know for sure. There's a lot of doctors trying to fix what's wrong. And it makes me feel a lot better when I get to spend time with you and Maddie and your mom. That's the best thing of all."

Daphne gets a little smile on her face, but her lower lip still trembles.

"Deacon is going to stay here with us at our house," Rayna adds. "Is that okay with you? So we can take extra good care of him. And maybe sometimes we'll all stay at his house together too."

Daphne tilts her head intently, watching both of them. "So he's like your boyfriend now?" she asks. "For real?"

Rayna glances at him over her daughter's head and smiles. "Yep," she says. "For real."

"Like forever?"

Deacon's eyes burn into hers.

"Yeah," she says softly. "Forever."

_As long as that may be._

###################################

After three days of the silent treatment from Maddie, they are all feeling the strain of it. While Daphne quickly becomes Deacon's little shadow, following him around the house constantly, Maddie is the opposite. She is withdrawn, distant, and nothing Rayna seems to say will reassure her. She wants nothing to do with either of her parents, and barely comes out of her room.

Rayna finds Deacon in the hallway, leaning against the wall looking at their daughter's closed bedroom door with his hands in his pockets and a distressed look on his face.

"Maybe I should try and talk to her again," he says in a hollow voice. "I know you tried, but…."

She sighs as she slips her arms around his waist. "Maddie gets a lot like you, you know," she says. "When things bother her. She just wants to be left alone to think things out. Sound familiar?"

"Yeah it does," he grumbles. "Had to give her that, didn't I?"

"Hey now, you gave her lots of good things," Rayna chides softly. "She got the best and worst of both of us, Deacon."

"Can't argue with that," his arms tighten around her as she lays her cheek on his shoulder. "She's my little girl, Ray. I feel like I'm…letting her down, you know? Again."

"Don't even think that," she says, stunned, lifting her head to look at him. "Don't _ever _think that."

He doesn't say anything more. He doesn't have to. She can feel his hurt. They just stand there for a long time in the hallway, tangled up in each other's arms.

Later, Rayna find him in the music room long after the girls are asleep.

She stands in the doorway and listens as he plays a sweet quiet song she hasn't yet heard before. From the first verse, she realizes it's clearly about Maddie.

_Well I know one day, I'll give you away _

_ And I'm gonna stand there and smile _

_ And when I get home, and I'm all alone _

_ I'll sit in your room for awhile….. _

She watches as Deacon's head drops and he stops playing for a minute, and her heart aches, wishing she could take it away. All of it. The illness. The years he lost with Maddie. The years they lost together. Time is the one thing she can never give him back.

He starts playing again.

_ But when tough little boys _

_ grow up to be Dads _

_ They turn into big babies again _

"Hey, you," Rayna says softly. "That's a real pretty song."

He looks up, surprised to see her standing there. "You still awake? It's late."

"Can't sleep anymore without you next to me," she says ruefully, dropping down next to him on the sofa. "Guess I'm getting used to it."

He shoots her a grin. "That ain't a bad thing at all."

"No," she says with a smile of her own, taking the guitar out of his hand and setting it aside. "It definitely is not."

Deacon pulls her down onto his lap and takes her face in his hands and kisses her long and deep, a moment that goes on and on. It is seconds that feel like forever as they melt into each other and her hands tangle in his dark hair.

He's never thought about the meaning of forever as much as he does lately.

"You didn't let Maddie down," Rayna murmurs as he rains kisses across her face and neck. "Or any of us. Okay? Please don't be thinkin' that. We love you so much."

His blue eyes look up at her with such intensity that she feels it in the depth of her soul. "You know," he says quietly. "I knew it would be good. I just never thought it would be this good."

"What?" she jokes. "Dealing with moody teenage girls… hair products all over the bathroom…. shoes and clothes taking over the house…I'm kinda surprised you haven't gone runnin yet."

"I'd take all that a million times over," he says, leaning forward to kiss her again. "To know I have more time with you and them. I love you, Ray."

Tears blur her eyes, and she kisses him back with every ounce of love for him she has. "You will," she says firmly. "So you better be ready to fight. Because I sure as hell am not giving you up without one."

His eyes crinkle into a smile, the one she's loved just about since she was a 16 year old girl.

"Oh is that so?"

"It sure as hell is," Rayna says, gazing down at him solemnly. "I was thinking about something Daphne said the other day when Teddy brought the girls home. She said forever, Deacon. And I did…and I meant it. I want you to know that."

She reaches down into the pocket of her jeans, and presses something into the palm of his hand.

"I want to do it right this time," she whispers. "Will you put this ring on my finger where it belongs, Deacon? This time I'm leavin it there forever."

His eyes burn as without hesitation he takes that silver band that has seen them through so much, and slips it onto her finger. He's been waiting a long time for that moment, seeing that ring on her hand. It is everything.

"I love you," she murmurs as she kisses him again. "And I wanna be your wife. In sickness and in health and ….everything that comes after."

She doesn't say what comes after, but he knows what it is.

Til death do us part.

_ I swear to god, _he thinks._ If we make it to the altar, they're leavin that part out. _

He'd rather have forever.

_########################################## _

By Wednesday, Daphne has had enough of her sister's behavior. After school, she goes up to Maddie's room and flings open her bedroom door.

"Hey," Maddie says, appalled, glaring at her from where she sits on the window seat writing in a notebook. "Did you ever hear of knocking?"

Daphne stands in the middle of the room, hands on her hips, giving her sister the stare right back. "You're hurting his feelings, you know. And Mom's too."

"You wouldn't understand," Maddie mutters, leaning with her head against the window, gazing outside.

"I'm not a baby. I know what cancer is."

Maddie jerks her head up in surprise. "They told you?"

"Yeah," Daphne says. Her eyes look sad. "And I think you're being really mean, Maddie. And selfish. Families are supposed to stick together when things get hard. Not turn their backs on each other."

Maddie doesn't say anything, but a lone tear creeps down her cheek.

"Whatever," Daphne says, disgusted. "But if it were _my_ dad that was sick, I'd want to spend all my time with him that I could, not hide out in my room and act like a spoiled brat and be mad at everyone."

When she gets no response, Daphne turns with a heavy sigh to leave the room.

"I'm not mad," Maddie says quietly, making her sister stop and turn back. "I'm just really, really scared."

Daphne slowly crosses the room and sits down next to her. "Me too," she whispers.

Maddie lays her head in her little sister's lap, and cries.

####################################

**Later that night: **

They are snuggled up in Rayna's bed, the three of them among the blankets and pillows. Daphne has a huge bowl of popcorn in front of her, and supreme command of the remote as she picks out a movie on the tv.

"Don't pick a scary one," Rayna says as she reaches into Daphne's bowl for another handful of popcorn. "Or I won't sleep all night."

"I like scary," Daphne says, with an impish grin.

"Me too," Deacon says with a smirk. "Two against one, you're outvoted, Ray."

"Thanks a lot, Babe," she grabs a throw pillow and whacks him on the arm. "Traitor."

Maddie walks by the open doorway then, head down, phone in her hand.

"Hey, sweetheart," Rayna calls. "Why don't you come join us?"

She half expects Maddie to just keep on walking, and her heart leaps when she hovers uncertainly in the doorway for a second, and Rayna can see it. She wants so bad to be a part of it.

"Come watch a movie with us, sweetie," she says again.

Maddie shakes her head. "I have homework." She fibs, keeping her eyes averted.

"It'll wait."

Deacon doesn't say anything, but his eyes look sad. He knows they've both agreed it is best to give her space, but it hurts so damn bad, watching her shut him out.

And still, Maddie lingers.

"Suit yourself," Daphne says with a shrug. "I was just about to pour garlic powder on the popcorn anyway."

Deacon hides a smile, watching Rayna's youngest daughter take matters into her own hands.

Maddie wrinkles her nose. "Don't do that, it's awful. Did you put on extra butter?"

Before she can change her mind, she crosses the room and takes the shaker out of her sister's hand, and then sits down on the bed next to her and snares the remote. "What movie did you pick out, anyway?"

"Zombies in L.A," Daphne says cheerfully. "Fun, huh?"

"That sounds disgusting."

"You get the final vote, Maddie," Deacon says from behind her. "Zombies or chick flick."

Maddie glances back at her dad, and a hesitant smile crosses her face.

And in that moment, Deacon knows it's gonna be okay. He has his little girl back.

"I guess I can close my eyes for the gross parts," she says reluctantly. "Just once."

"Alright," Deacon says with a grin. "Zombies it is."

Daphne raises her arms in victory.

Maddie notices the ring on her mom's hand then, and her eyes widen though she doesn't say a word. But she also doesn't stop smiling.

Behind their backs, Deacon and Rayna exchange a long look with each other.

_Told ya she'd come around. _

She reaches for his hand, and he squeezes it hard.

For now, at least, things are back to the way they're supposed to be.

###################################

**2 days later**

"Good morning," Rayna says as she comes into the kitchen and hits the start button on the coffee maker. He's sitting at the kitchen counter, and she leans over and presses a kiss to his cheek.

"Mornin'."

"Everything okay?" she asks, taking notice at the way he's staring at the phone in his hand.

"Dr. Abbott's office called," he says in a low voice. "She wants to meet with us this afternoon."

Rayna pauses in pulling milk out of the fridge. The girls will be up shortly, and it always gets temporarily crazy until they are out the door and off to school. "About what?" she asks carefully, relaying this information in her mind. _It has to be the test_, she thinks. She hopes it's the test, and not some kind of awful news. Since he's been home from the hospital, he's been real careful to do everything he's supposed to, and she's been real careful not to hover over him like she promised, and it's been an adjustment, having him here with them, finding a new "normal".

It's also made her the happiest she's ever been. She looks at that ring on her hand about a hundred times a day. She'd dreamed about this once, them being a family, making a beautiful life together.

Now they have it. And Rayna is damned determined to keep it.

"She didn't say. Just said it was important. And both of us. I been doing good, right?" Deacon says, thinking out loud. "I mean….taking those damn Nexa-whatever pills….eating what I'm supposed to and all. Going to the appointments, having those scans every week."

They wanted him to do something called Embolization. Rayna knows this because she's had plenty of conversations with Dr. Abbott he _doesn't_ know about. She doesn't like going behind his back, but she doesn't like that there is things he isn't telling her either, like the fact that he's still resisting a few very valid other forms of treatment.

"Yes," she says, coming over to wrap an arm around his waist. "I'm sure it's nothing bad, just an update."

"Yeah," he says, rubbing his eyes wearily. "I'm sure."

He says it. He just wishes he could believe it.

#################################

They wait for the doctor, anxiously, silently, Deacon holding Rayna's hand tightly in his lap, his thumb running lightly over the ring there.

"I wanted to talk to you about some test results that finally came back this week," the doctor says.

He is almost afraid to ask. "Is it getting worse?"

It had been two months since he'd found out in Memphis he was sick. Two months out of the six month time limit for a transplant they'd given him had slipped away. That fact isn't lost on him.

It isn't lost on Rayna either. More than once he's caught her flipping through the calendar. More than once he's caught her stopping herself in the middle of saying "maybe next year…."

"It's progressing," The doctor says without mincing words. "But not any faster than we expected. All your scans from last week came back the same. This is about the other test results."

Rayna draws in a very noticeable breathe.

He stares at the doctor. "What other tests?"

"Well," Dr. Abbott says carefully. "Quite a few people have come forward to be tested, Mr. Claybourne. Including Rayna."

Deacon turns to her, his mouth turned down into a frown, accusing. "Dammit, Rayna, I told you I didn't want you doing that! And who else knows? Nobody was supposed to know."

"Deacon," she says patiently. "The only people as far as I know are Scarlett and Tandy. And well…Teddy."

"Teddy! Why the hell would you tell your ex-husband?"

"That day Maddie was upset, I had to tell him something!"

He gives her a look that says he is not pleased. At all.

"I've been thinking," Rayna says cautiously, turning back to the doctor. "Is there any way we could have people volunteer to be tested….without knowing it was Deacon?"

"We're not doing that!"

"Deacon, maybe we should," she says hesitantly. "We know a lot of people, the chances might be higher of finding someone that way. It's only a blood test. If they're not a match, they wouldn't even know it was you."

"It's very possible," Dr. Abbott says. "It would be difficult, but manageable if you could convince someone to volunteer without knowing much of the details, at least for the first round. But it's also possibly not necessary. Of all the people tested so far, two are already a match."

Rayna stares at her. "What? I thought just Scarlett and I had been tested, and Scarlett is a no. Does that mean I'm a match?"

Deacon swears under his breath. Of course Scarlett also had gone against his wishes. He wonders what else Rayna and his niece were up to behind his back. "It doesn't matter. I don't want to know who it is, because I told you, I don't want anyone I know putting themselves at risk. I'd rather take my chances on the registry."

"Well, I do," Rayna says firmly.

He rubs his hand across his eyes. "Rayna. I love you, but…."

"Deacon…," she says quietly, reaching out and laying a hand across his face. "Just listen to what she has to say, okay? For me. And for the girls."

The pain in her eyes, the pleading look she gives him melts away all his anger.

She's pretty damn good at that.

With a sigh, he turns back to the doctor, who waits patiently.

"Alright," Dr. Abbott says briskly, glancing down at her charts. "Of the four people who've asked be tested, your niece Scarlett is not a match, but Rayna is, and also Tandy Hampton, Rayna is that you're…sister, correct?"

Rayna and Deacon both stare at the doctor like she's grown an extra head.

"What?" Rayna manages to ask. "Did I hear you right? Tandy was tested?"

"Were you not aware of that?"

"No," Rayna says, glancing at Deacon. "Honestly. I had no idea."

Judging from the shock on her face, he believes her. And for the life of him he can't figure out why Rayna's sister who has barely ever given him the time of the day in 26 years would do something like this.

And he says so. Bluntly. "Your sister thinks I'm a jackass."

"Oh, she does not," Rayna interjects. "She's just….overprotective."

He raises his eyebrows. "Is that what you call it?"

Dr. Abbott seems to be quite amused by the entire conversation. "Well the fact remains that you and Tandy are both a match," she continues, "so I'll leave it up to the two of you how you want to proceed. There's no guarantee. There's several rounds more of testing that need to be done, so the more matches, the better. You should keep asking other people."

"Yes," Rayna says firmly. "Whatever we need to do."

Deacon doesn't look as willing at that thought.

"I think that's really all we have to discuss for today, unless you have any other questions."

"Who else was tested?" he asks. "Beverly?"

Next to him, Rayna takes a sip out of her bottle of water to hide her displeasure at the mention of Deacon's sister. God bless Beverly, and she _is _Deacon's sister, but the last thing right now they need is Beverly riding back into town and spreading her drama around.

Dr. Abbott looked down at her chart again. "No, it looks like besides the three of you, there was a few donors who wished to remain anonymous, and our own Mayor Conrad was also tested."

Rayna chokes on her water.

"Uh…what?" Deacon asks in disbelief. "That must be a mistake, right?"

"It's not a mistake. I have his name right here. But he's not a match."

"Well," Rayna says, clearing her throat and trying to regain her dignity. "This day is just full of surprises, isn't it?"

"I don't even know _what _to call it," Deacon mutters.

"What I would call it," Dr. Abbott says with a genuine smile. "Is lucky. Deacon, you are very lucky to have all of these people around you who obviously care about you. Just keep that in mind."

He can't even find the words, his mind reeling.

_Why the hell would either of them do that,_ he thinks.

"Yes," Rayna says softly. "We're both lucky. Thank you, Doctor. We'll be in touch."

############################################

Rayna drives on the way home, both of them rather in a daze, trying to digest all that had just happened. Not speaking. Just thinking.

Tandy is there with the girls, helping them with their homework in the dining room.

"Hey," she says cheerfully. Her smile fades when she sees Deacon and Rayna's faces. "What's wrong?"

"Girls," Rayna says faintly. "Can you take your homework upstairs, please? We need to talk with Aunt Tandy for a little minute."

Maddie shoots a look at them. "Is this about Dad? I want to hear too."

Maddie's coming back around. Watching her give Deacon a hug this morning before she went out the door to school brought tears to Rayna's eyes.

"Hey, I'm not leaving if she isn't," Daphne protests.

"Upstairs, please," Deacon says. "Both of you."

Grumbling, they gather their books and head for the stairs.

Tandy almost knows what they're going to say before they say it. She can tell by the look on her sister's face.

"You're a match," Rayna says slowly, dropping her purse onto the table. "And so am I."

"You?" Tandy says, surprised.

"She's not doing it, so it doesn't matter," Deacon interrupts before Rayna can protest. "I'm sorry Ray, but I won't let you take the chance. If something happened…the girls…I could never live with myself. There's too much risk."

"I think I can make that decision on my own, thank you very much," Rayna says, annoyed. "And that's not the point here. The point is that Tandy _you're _a match. Why didn't you tell us you got tested?"

Tandy looks relieved, and guilt-stricken at the same time. "Listen, I'm so sorry I didn't tell you, but it seemed like the right thing to do, and I didn't want to get your hopes up until I knew either way."

Deacon is leaning with his hands against the back of a kitchen chair, still trying to comprehend the fact that Rayna's sister and ex-husband were suddenly on some god-fearing unknown mission to try and save his life.

"Why?" He asks quietly.

"What?"

"Why'd you do it?" He echoes, directing his question towards Tandy.

"I don't have anything to lose," Tandy said, and tears are visible in her eyes. "No husband, no kids…And the two of you have _everything _to lose. And maybe…well, maybe I thought if I could help, it would make up for some of the sins of my past, my sins with Daddy…"

Rayna's got tears in her eyes as she hugs her sister. "You don't have to make up for anything, don't you know that? We're family, and we love you."

Tandy shakes her head. "I do. I did so many awful things working for Daddy, and tried to justify them…And you. If it weren't for me pushing you to marry Teddy, maybe you two would have been married 15 years ago."

Deacon is real quiet, standing there trying to get his thoughts in order.

"Please," Tandy says earnestly, looking at the both of them. "I'm doing this for all of you. Let me."

He feels Rayna's hands on his shoulders.

"Let's just think about it, okay?" She says softly. "Tandy wants help, maybe we should let her."

"I'll think about it," he manages. "That's all I can give you right now."

Tandy's face wavers, and Rayna's heart lifts considerably. From Deacon, this is everything.

For the first time, there is hope that they'll get their forever after all.

**The song I used is _Tough Little Boys _by Gary Allen. My apologies if some of the medical stuff is a little off. I tried to make it fairly accurate, but I'm a writer, not a doctor :) Thanks for reading!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Deacon **

He can't sleep, but it's nothing new. Too many thoughts and nowhere to go with them. He glances with longing over at the Gibson in the corner, but Rayna is sleeping soundly next to him, and it would be a shame to wake her. The room is dark except for the moonlight filtering through the window above them, casting soft shadows. The sun won't be up for hours. His mind wanders.

"_Let's stay at your place tonight_," she said this afternoon when Teddy picked up the girls for their week with him.

He wasn't gonna argue with that. He can be content anywhere Rayna sleeps next to him, but it is different here, in his house, the house they'd first lived in together all those years ago. It's more than just familiar, being here. It feels like home.

Even though it's been a month of them living together, he doesn't want to hurt her feelings by telling her that staying in that big house on her fancy gated piece of property still feels a little off to him. He can't shake the slight feeling of wondering where he fits there. Those are the rooms where she made a life with Teddy and the girls. Sure, Teddy hasn't lived there in years, but it doesn't matter. He was in that house first. He can't help but think about it, every night when they go to bed in the room where she slept with Teddy. And Luke, which riles him up even more.

He doesn't tell her, but she knows anyway. She's the one who'd suggested last week that they go furniture shopping.

_"Does this help?" Rayna said, amused, as they watched delivery drivers take apart the old ornate guilded headboard and assemble the new rustic cedar bed, clearly thinking he was acting like a big ole' baby about it. _

_ "A little." He said begrudgingly. _

_ But he smiled, and so did she. _

Teddy may have left his mark on that house, but Rayna had left her mark on this one a long time ago. _I had her first_, he thinks, watching Rayna sleep with her hair fanned out around her on the pillow and her hand under her cheek. Even in sleep, she is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. And she's his. She's always been his, even when she wasn't. He wonders what she's dreaming.

Her eyelashes flutter open, as if sensing his gaze.

"Hey," she murmurs, reaching out a hand to touch his face. "It's late. You okay?"

"Yeah, just laying here watchin you sleep," he says softly. "Prettiest thing I've ever seen."

Rayna gives him a dreamy little smile.

"I been thinkin," he says. "About the stuff with Tandy and going on with the testing."

Her blue eyes are suddenly wide awake as she leans up on her elbow, looking down at him anxiously. "What are you thinking?"

"Let's do it."

"Really?" Her heart skips a beat.

"Yeah," he says with a sigh. "Really."

She leans over and kisses him, then scootches over a little and lays her head on his shoulder, snuggles up beside him, her hand on his chest over his heart.

"It's gonna be okay, Deacon," she says quietly, closing her eyes again, reassured by the feeling of his heart beat strong under her hand. "I know it is."

He doesn't say anything, but he hopes it silently as he kisses her forehead and closes his eyes.

And finally, he sleeps.

##################################

**2 weeks later-**

Maddie is surprised when she comes out of school after choir practice and finds Deacon waiting for her in the front circle instead of Teddy.

It's been better between them, the last few weeks, but she's still cautious. Quieter than usual. Always watching him like she wants to ask something, or say something, but she doesn't.

I_ think she's afraid to be close to you,_ Rayna has said to him. _That something will happen, and she'll lose you. _Daphne, in comparison, is exactly the opposite. She is afraid to let him out of her sight, pitched the biggest fit he'd ever seen that morning when Rayna said Teddy was picking her up from school. It was so unlike her, that they were both a little thrown off.

"I thought I was going back to..um…Dad's today," Maddie says as she pulls open the back door and carefully sets her guitar case on the seat. One of his is there too, she notices.

"I told him I'd drop you off later," Deacon says. "Thought maybe we could spend the afternoon together. That okay? Just us."

They need it. As great as it is being with Rayna and both of the girls, he misses his quiet afternoons with Maddie. They haven't had a guitar lesson in weeks.

"Um….sure…." Maddie says awkwardly. "I guess." She climbs in the front seat, and immediately as they drive away pulls out her phone and her earbuds.

"Leave those off, okay?"

She looks like she wants to protest, but she doesn't. She switches the radio on low instead.

"Where do you wanna go? Maybe down by the park for awhile? Might be a nice afternoon to sit outside and play."

"Whatever you want," she says quietly.

She doesn't say much as he drives, but he's not giving up. He asks her about everything he can think of, school, her friends, her after-school activities, what she wants to do for her birthday coming up in a month.

By the time they get to where they're going, she's got a little bit more of a smile on her face.

"I've never been here," Maddie says curiously, as they park by the stone bridge and hop out of the truck. Deacon grabs the two guitar cases out of the back, and hands her a folded up blanket, and they walk down the slope to a nice flat spot by the river.

It's the unusually warmest day they've seen in months, probably close to 60 degrees. The sun is bright, the snow is long-gone, and green patches of grass are popping up all over. It probably won't last, spring is a long ways off yet, but for now it's a refreshing break from the gray winter days.

"Yeah it's nice, huh?" he says, squinting his eyes against the sun as he glances around, thinking about how many times him and Rayna had sat on that old wooden picnic table. They'd fought, cried, talked, laughed…. sometimes just sat next to each other without saying a word at all. Sometimes he'd get a call. Just "meet me" was all she had to say. Sometimes there wasn't a call at all, he just felt it. And when he got here, she was always waiting.

Maddie's eyes are knowing as she helps him spread out the blanket. "Did you come here with Mom?"

"Yeah," he says with a smile. "I did. It's kinda special to us, so I thought it might be nice to share it with you."

She absorbs this for a minute as she opens up her guitar case.

They run through a couple chord progressions she needs practice on, he teaches her a couple of new things, and then she pulls the battered notebook out of her case he knows she's been writing songs in for months. "I wrote something new," she says hesitantly. "Can I play it for you?"

"I'd love that," Deacon says as he puts his own guitar aside, and Maddie starts to play.

_Don't know just where I'm going _

_And tomorrow, it's a little overwhelming _

_And the air is cold _

_And I'm not the same anymore _

_I've been running in that direction _

_For too long now _

_I've lost my own reflection _

_And I can't look down _

_If you're not there to catch me when I fall. _

_If this is the moment I stand here on my own _

_If this is my rite of passage that somehow leads me home _

_I might be afraid _

_But it's my turn to be brave _

_If this is the last chance before we say goodbye _

_At least it's the first day of the rest of my life _

_I can't be afraid _

_Cause it's my turn to be brave_

Rayna's right, he realizes not for the first time as he listens to their daughter play with an ease than never ceases to amaze him. Maddie got the best part of both of them. Rayna's voice, his guitar hands, but that writing…..he's never heard a kid her age write lyrics like that. She's something, alright.

_Some day she's gonna be better than both of us,_ he thinks.

He wonders if he'll be around to see it, and it is a sobering thought.

The song trails off, and Maddie's voice gets quiet.

"That was beautiful," he says.

"Thanks," she says, her voice unable to hide a little sadness. "Guess I have a lot to write about lately."

He gets real quiet for a minute, searching for the right words. Rayna always seems to know the right things to say. He's still working on that part. He's always been a lot better at saying what he feels when there's a guitar in his hands.

"I know all this stuff going on is real scary," he says, his voice catching a little. "With all this talk about me being sick and everything but…. I'm still me, you know? Getting to be your dad is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. Don't forget that, okay? No matter what happens. I mean I know you got another dad and all… You're lucky. Most kids would never get to be that lucky."

Maddie's dark eyes filled with tears. "But he's not you," she blurted out. "And it's not the same. What if they can't…fix you? What are we supposed to do without you?"

The pain of this is breaking his heart more than anything else. They haven't had nearly enough time.

Deacon hesitates, knowing him and Rayna have agreed not to tell the girls anything about Tandy becoming his donor until they know it's 100% going to happen. The last few weeks have been a barrage of testing on both their parts, everything from scans to psychological stuff. So far, it's looking more promising than they expected.

"I'm gonna tell you something," he says slowly. "But you can't tell your mom I told you, okay? She didn't want us to get your hopes up in case things don't work out. And you can't tell Daphne. But I think it might make you feel a little better."

Maddie quickly swipes the tears from her eyes.

"Aunt Tandy wants to be the person to give me part of her liver."

The surprise on Maddie's face is evident. "What? Why? I mean I thought she didn't…."

"Like me?" he supplies. He can't hold back a grin.

Maddie grins too. "Well…." she hedges, but they are both laughing.

"I think we've worked that out. She just worries about your mama, you know? Your grandma died when they were real young, and Aunt Tandy got used to looking out for her."

"If it makes you feel any better," Maddie confided. "She doesn't like Luke too much anymore either. We saw some pictures of him on the front of a magazine in the store the other day and Aunt Tandy said she wanted to knock that smile off his face with the biggest stick she could find."

"Oh come on now," Deacon says with a laugh. "She didn't say that."

"No, I'm serious," she insists with a giggle. "Mom scolded her for saying that. But when Daphne and me were behind them I heard her say she wouldn't mind doing the same thing."

"You're mom's funny."

"Yeah, she is."

It is the best sound in the world, to hear Maddie laughing again.

"Let's pack up our stuff and head out, huh? How about some dinner before I gotta get you back? Maybe the Bluebird?"

"That sounds great," Maddie says as she puts her guitar back in its case. "Real great, Dad."

Just hearing that one word again is the best music his ears have ever heard.

##########################################

Maddie is as talkative as ever over their burgers and fries, but she gets quiets again on the way back to Teddy's, staring out the window, absorbed in her thoughts. It's a different kind of quiet, though. A thinking kind.

_She'll be okay_, Deacon realizes, even though it makes his heart hurt a little more. _Whatever happens. She's tough_. _Like Ray and me. _

Sometimes he still can't believe that their love was strong enough to make her.

At Teddy's he walks up to the door with her, and hands over her bag and guitar case. "You have a good week now."

"Thanks for taking me there," Maddie says, with her beautiful smile that reminds him so much of Rayna. Rayna says all the time that she looks like him, but all he sees is her. "It means a lot."

"To me too," he says.

Maddie throw her arms around his waist and hugs him fiercely. "I love you, Dad."

His eyes burn, and it's hard to talk around the lump in his throat. "Love you too. See you on Friday, okay? Give Daphne a hug for me."

"Yep, I will."

The door opens and Teddy comes out then, and Maddie slips in the house past them.

They stand there face to face for a second, him and Teddy. There's a mutual understanding now. It took years to get here, but it's there.

"Listen," Deacon clears his throat. "Dr. Abbott told Rayna and me that you got tested. I don't know why you did that, and…well, even though you weren't a match, I just wanted to say thanks." He holds out his hand.

Teddy shakes it firmly, without hesitation. "She loves you," he says simply. "That's enough reasoning for me."

Deacon doesn't ask whether Teddy means Maddie or Rayna. It doesn't really matter.

He nods his head, and turns to go.

That's enough reasoning for him too.

##################################

**Mid-March**

"So are you ready for this meeting?" Tandy asks as she smears jam on a piece of toast.

Rayna makes a face as she sticks her laptop into her bag and double checks she has everything she needs for the legal meeting with the attorneys. "Not really. It's ridiculous, suing me for half the cost of a wedding that didn't even happen. He's the one who wanted all that ridiculous stuff in the first place. I mean really, a ten _thousand _dollar ice sculpture with our faces on it?"

Tandy snickers. "I wonder what he did with that, anyway."

"Trust me," Rayna rolls her eyes. "I have no desire to find out. Knowing Luke, probably used it as target practice."

It was the first time she'd be coming face to face with him since the morning she'd called off the wedding three months ago. While she'd been trying like hell to stay out of the press with Deacon and the girls, Luke had been on his tour in Australia, getting his face on every magazine cover possible with every pretty girl he could literally get his hands on.

To say she is disgusted is an underestimate.

Tandy raises her eyebrows. "And what does Deacon think of all of this?"

"He's going with me," she says firmly. "I told him holding my hand would probably be the only thing keeping me from it connecting with that smug look on Luke's face when we settle. And you know we're going to have to settle."

"You know he's just doing it to get under your skin," Tandy says wisely as she refills her coffee cup. "It's not like he needs the money. And it's not like you can't afford it. Highway 65 is doing fine. Settle and send him on his way, and it'll finally be all over."

"That's not the point," Rayna grumbles. "He's just doing it because he lost. And he doesn't like admitting it."

"He sure did lose," Deacon says as he comes into the kitchen, fresh from the shower and plants a lingering kiss on Rayna's lips. "And I'm glad he did."

Tandy looks away, but she can't help a smile. It just reassures her that she's doing the right thing. Watching them find their way back to each other the last few months has been like watching a fairy tale played out before her eyes. Deacon's illness is the only thing holding them back now from getting their happily ever after.

The surgery has been approved. Dr. Abbott's team wants to do it as soon as possible, but Deacon wants to wait until April and he's not backing down on that.

Rayna had thrown a fit when she heard that….until she found out why, and confided in her sister.

_Maddie's fifteenth birthday is in March, _Rayna said with tears in her eyes_. He's still afraid he won't be around for the next one. _

So they're waiting. All of them. Counting days down on the calendar. There's about 25 to go now. Maddie's birthday is next week_. _

"Come on, or we'll be late," Rayna says, letting Deacon steal one more quick kiss before she gathers her bag.

"I wouldn't mind that at all," he says with a grin.

Rayna laughs, and swats his arm away as he tries to pull her back in, hands on her hips, his blue eyes teasing.

She treasures every moment like this, when she can forget for a second that he's sick.

He's gone downhill in the last month. It happened fast, and took them all by surprise. Rayna keeps trying to deny it to herself, but it's obvious, and it hurts them all to watch it happen. He's tired all the time, not eating, losing weight at an alarming rate. He pretends he's fine for the sake of the girls, that those pills are working, and but she knows he isn't fine. She can see the yellow creeping into his eyes, and that is the worse feeling she's ever had. 25 days. And yet it feels years away.

"See ya at the office?" She says to Tandy as Deacon goes out the front door ahead of her. "I'll be in as soon as I get this handled and over with."

"Heading there right now," Tandy says, forcing cheerfulness. "See ya in a bit."

"Thanks," Rayna says, reaching out to hug her sister. "For everything. In case I don't say it enough. I don't know what we'd do without you right now."

Tandy has been a godsend in the last few months, and not just agreeing to the surgery. Helping with the girls, working at the office to help her keep Highway 65 running, all of it.

"That's what sisters are for," Tandy says, squeezing her tight, and willing away the tears that gather. "Better go. If Deacon beats you to that courthouse, there won't be much of Luke left."

Rayna laughs, and heads for the door, tossing back a wave.

Tandy lets the tears fall after her sister leaves, because she can see it too. The worry in Rayna's eyes that she tries to hide in front of everyone else. The way Deacon is fading a little more every day.

She wonders if April will be too late.

########################################

Rayna drives. She always drives now.

"This is ridiculous, you know," she says to Deacon as she impatiently watches for the red light to turn. "I don't know why he thinks this will do either one of us any good. He's just trying to give the press something else to talk about."

After a bit, she realizes she's the only one talking, and she looks over at Deacon.

He's sitting in the passenger seat, his face a pale shade of gray.

It is a startling change from the man who was kissing her in the kitchen 30 minutes ago.

"Deacon," she says, panicking, trying to keep her eyes on the road and shake him awake at the same time. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure," his voice is barely there, fading. "I think, Ray….."

His eyes drift close, and he slumps over in the seat, his head making an alarming thud as it lands against the passenger side window.

Rayna swears her heart literally stops as she yanks the truck to a halt on the side of the road and takes off her seatbelt. "Come on, Babe," she says as she leans over, frantically shaking him for a few minutes, slapping his face gently, but he is unresponsive.

Without another thought, she whips the truck back out onto the highway and puts the gas pedal to the floor. They are two miles from the hospital.

Just two miles.

And yet it feels like 20.

"Come on," she whispers, grabbing his hand as she pumps the gas pedal harder, and tears stream down her face. "Don't you leave me yet, dammit. I'm not done with you. Hold on, please hold on."

For the first time in a long time, his hand doesn't squeeze hers back.

**thanks for reading! The song I borrowed was "Brave" by Idina Menzel**


	12. Chapter 12

Tandy slips into the chair next to Rayna's three lawyers and smoothes her hair. "My apologies for running late, I'll be sitting in for Rayna today. Can I be informed of what's going on, please?"

She had been on the way to the Highway 65 office when she got the panicked call from Rayna that she was in fact not at the settlement hearing at all, but at the hospital with Deacon.

_"Is he okay?" she asked her sister, afraid of the answer. "How bad is it?" _

_ "It's bad, Tandy. I need you to call Teddy to get the girls from school, and call that damn attorney and do something about that meeting. I can't….I just can't deal with any of that right now until I know what's going on." _

_ "I'll take care of it," Tandy said firmly. "Just go take care of him, okay? And I'll be there in a little while." _

"Well since we've been waiting for a half hour," Luke's lead attorney says pointedly. "Can we get on with this please?"

"Wait a minute-," Luke interrupts. "Where the hell is Rayna? I ain't settling nothing unless I'm dealing with Rayna."

"I'm sure her lawyers will suffice," Tandy says without hesitation. "Rayna had a family emergency to deal with. I'm just here to report back to her the results and make sure you don't attempt to screw her over in the process."

"I bet she did," he says with a knowing smirk. "What is it, bailing Deacon out of jail? Or dealing with another one of his temper tantrums?"

Tandy never has wished she had a big old stick more than she does at that moment.

"Actually, Luke, she_ is_ with Deacon," she says, her mouth set in a straight line. "He's in the Vanderbilt Hospital ICU right now. I'm sure everyone else will find out soon enough when it makes the papers, so you might as well hear it now."

They'd tried to keep the whole ordeal pretty quiet after getting Tandy approved as the donor, but Rayna had mentioned that people were starting to ask questions, especially in the last month or so when Deacon had virtually disappeared from doing some of his regular gigs around town. Friends were starting to question, and worry, and rumors abound. They'd been trying to avoid making an official statement on anything until after the surgery was over, knowing it was going to initiate press and media hoopla all over again.

Tandy knew it wasn't the only reason Deacon didn't want anyone else to know.

_I did it to myself_, she'd heard him say to Rayna more than once. _I don't deserve anyone feelin' sorry for me. _

Luke's smirk fades quicker than one she's ever seen. "Is that a joke?"

"It most certainly is not a damn joke," Tandy responds coolly as she reaches for the contract in front of Rayna's lawyer, and shoves it across the table. "Here's your settlement. Take it or leave it, and get over it. I have much more important places to be, and family matters to deal with."

Luke face still looks stunned under his giant hat as he stares down at the contract. But he signs it, and slowly slides it back across the table to the lawyer.

"Alright then," Tandy says with completely false pleasantness. "We're done here." She gathers her briefcase and stalks out of the room. There is not a sound from the peanut gallery of bewildered men that she has left at the table behind her.

Luke catches her just as she's getting into the elevator. "Tandy, seriously. What's going on?"

She thought he might look the slightest big concerned, but probably only for some purpose of his own ego.

"That's not your concern any longer, Luke," Tandy says. "Have a nice life." And the elevator closed in his face. _Jackass_, she thinks silently as she impatiently watches the floor numbers drop.

**###############################**

As soon as the hospital personnel realize who Rayna is, she's given a private room to wait in, away from all the curious on-lookers in the waiting room and their camera phones.

But ending up as the latest country music gossip is her last concern right now.

She can't think of anything but the terror of watching the paramedics pull Deacon out of her SUV and wheel him away on that stretcher. He was limp, but mumbling, reaching for her hand, pushing them away as they tried to put an oxygen mask on his face.

"_Ray, where's Ray?" _

"_I'm right here,"_ _she promised, gripping his hand tightly_. _"Let them help you. I'm not going anywhere."_

"_Love you_," _he murmured, and then he was out again as they wheeled him into the E.R. _

But in the E.R. a nurse immediately pushed her out of the sterile room, telling her she couldn't be in there, shoving her instead towards an orderly who brought her to this little room with no outside windows that makes her feel like suffocating, telling her to wait.

So she waits.

_Breathe. Just breathe,_ she tells herself as she paces the small room from one side to the other, over and over again. She needs to be strong right now. For Deacon. And for her girls. Somehow she keeps breathing, somehow she doesn't break down like she wants to, even though she is inwardly panicking. Even though she wants to scream, and cry, and throw things, and yell how damn unfair this is.

She should be making calls. She knows she should. The only one she managed so far was Tandy. She needs to call Scarlett. She should probably call her lawyer and tell him why she didn't show up for the meeting an hour ago, although in her opinion Luke Wheeler can take his damn settlement and stuff it where the sun don't shine.

She picks up her phone off the side table and stares at the contact list, but her hands are shaking too much to touch the names.

_I can do this_, she thinks.

She tries calm her mind with thoughts of anything else, but it doesn't work, and finally she collapses onto the uncomfortable vinyl sofa in defeat, her hands drumming against her knees, the phone tossed aside.

A nurse comes in then, and Rayna jerks her head up, anxious for news.

"No update yet," the nurse says apologetically. "But I brought you these for safekeeping."

"Thank you," Rayna takes the plastic bag from her, and after she leaves, she sucks in a harsh breath as she empties out Deacon's collection of belongings they've taken off of him. His gold ring she slips on her finger, and it fits right over the silver band, covering it completely, the way it does when he holds her hand.

Her lower lip quivers as she takes it off and slides it onto the silver chain he always wears and fastens it around her neck close to her heart.

She flips through the pictures in his wallet. There is one of the four of them from Christmas at the cabin, a 4x6 cut to size. There is one of Scarlett's school pictures from when she was not much older than Daphne, and Maddie's school picture from this past fall. She examines a picture of the two of them, ancient, goodness it is startling how young they look, she thinks. But they _were _young_._ She couldn't have been more than 19. They were on a tour bus somewhere on the road. Her arms were around Deacon's neck, and he was kissing her cheek as she laughed.

_Things were so easy then,_ she thinks wistfully. _Before everything went to hell_.

Behind all of that tucked into the last fold, she pulls out a flat crumpled object yellowing around the edges, and her heart breaks all over again when she reads the mess of faded words on a Bluebird napkin, crossed out and scratched and rewritten til they were perfect.

_Sometime I'm hard on me _

_ When dreams don't come easy _

_ I wanna look back and say _

_ I did all that I could_

_Yeah at the end of the day, lord I pray _

_I have a life that's good _

_ Two arms around me _

_ Heaven to ground me _

_ And a family that always calls me home _

_ Four wheels to get there _

_ Enough love to share _

_ And a sweet sweet sweet song _

"What guy carries around scribbles on a napkin for 26 years?" She says out loud, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Only Deacon.

"A good one."

She looks up to see Tandy standing in the doorway of her little lonely room, and the last scrap of strength she's been desperately trying to hold onto for the last hour, just crumbles.

Tandy has seen her sister face a lot of things in the last 30 years, but she has never seen a look on her face like that. She's not Rayna Jaymes, calm and composed superwoman country star, label head extraordinaire. She's just Rayna, and she's scared to death.

Tandy drops next to her on the sofa, and Rayna lays her head against her sister's shoulder and lets the tears she's been holding back finally fall.

"They won't tell me anything," she says, choking on every word. "They wouldn't even let me go in with him. I don't know what the hell is going on, or what they're doing to him right now. God, I just feel so helpless."

"He'll be okay," Tandy says softly. "He's tough, right? Look, you guys survived that accident, didn't you? You survived so much, honey, I know somehow this is all going to be okay."

It wouldn't be fair if it wasn't.

Rayna seems a little better after that, a little of her determination returning. Tandy takes over the barrage of phone calls that need to be made, and watches her sister resolutely stalk out to badger the nurses working the station until she knows exactly what the hell is going on.

Tandy steps out of the room a little while later to find her arguing with the head nurse at the counter.

"I don't care if you're the Queen of England or how much money your father gave to this hospital," the nurse was saying. "If we don't know anything, we can't tell you anything. Now go and take yourself a seat ma'am, please! Or I will have someone get you one."

Despite of the direness of the situation, Tandy has to hold back a laugh.

Rayna is a Wyatt, alright. Through and through.

"Come on, sweetie," she says, taking her sister gently by the arm and leading her away. "Getting yourself thrown out of the hospital isn't going to do Deacon any good."

"I just want to know what's going on," Rayna says, insistently. "Why is that so hard? It's been two hours, Tandy. I'm about ready to go in there and see myself."

"I know. Let's find some coffee, huh?" She gestures towards the station in the corner.

"The coffee here is like motor oil," Rayna grumbles. She would know. She'd drank enough of it over the last three months.

"I talked to Teddy," Tandy says as she presses a Styrofoam cup into her sister's hand. "He'd like you to call him when you get a chance. And Scarlett is in California, she's trying to get back as soon as she can. I called Juliette, I called Bucky at the office. Anyone else you can think of for immediate notice?"

But before they got much farther, Rayna looks over her sister's shoulder and sees the doctor approaching. And it's not just the E.R. doctor. It's Dr. Abbott, and the E.R. doctor, and 4 other doctors she's pretty sure she's met at least once over the last 3 months, but she can't for the life of her remember their names or what part of this whole process they are involved in. Her heart sinks as low as she swears it can go.

"_This is it,"_ she thinks, her heart hammering. _"They're going to tell me he's gone. What am I going to tell my daughters if he's gone?" _

"He's stable right now," the E.R. doctor says. "I'll let Dr. Abbott give you the rest of the details. We'll be moving him to the Hepatology floor of the hospital shortly."

Rayna and Tandy both breathe a sigh of relief.

Dr. Abbott doesn't mince words at all. "We can't wait for the surgery," she says. "His liver function has dropped significantly. If it gets any lower, his other organs are in danger of shutting down. We need to do the surgery now, Ms. Jaymes, or he won't make it. We're running on borrowed time."

Rayna's face wavers, thinking of how much he wants to spend that birthday with Maddie. She vaguely hears the words they tell her, but it's as if she's underwater and they are far away. _Can't wait for surgery…..liver function dropping…vital organ failure. _She feels all control slipping away. She thought she had this. She thought she could handle it.

She also thought they had 25 more days.

Tandy is standing next to her, holding her up. She know what they're saying, she knows what this means. She doesn't know if she's ready either, but now she has to be.

She answers for her sister.

"Okay," she says quietly. "What do we do?"

"I want to check you in right now." The doctor says to her. "Then you'll be ready and prepped by morning. As long as he holds stable through the night, we'll start at 6 am."

Rayna hugs her sister tighter than she ever has, and over her shoulder a nurse waits impatiently with a clipboard. "I'll call Bucky and have him bring your things later."

"Now don't worry about me," Tandy says, smoothing her hair back. "Just be here with him for right now, okay? They're just gonna spend a few hours poking at me, and making sure I'm healthy, and then I'll be stuck in a hospital bed watching tv for the rest of the night. We know how this works, right? They told us everything."

Rayna knows. She know more about all of it than she ever dreamed.

It seems so ridiculous now, that 3 months ago her thoughts were only on her record label and the next big tour.

#########################################

They finally agree to let her see Deacon after he's been moved to the ICU on the Hep surgery floor. It's been hours, and her nerves are shot.

She calls Teddy as she waits in a yet another room. This time it's a room with a view looking out over the city, but it doesn't soothe her much. An afternoon rain pelts the windows hard, and she sees a strike of lightning far off in the distance. A storm is rolling in. The weather seems quite appropriate.

This is the hardest conversation, the one with Teddy. The other ones, with Juliette, with Beverly and Scarlett, she can go through the details and the motions without letting herself feel anything, but talking to Teddy all she can think of is her girls sitting at home worrying their poor little hearts out.

"How are the girls?" she asks, trying to keep her voice even.

"Upset," Teddy says with a sigh. "Crying since they got home from school. Begging me to bring them down there by you to see him. Is that possible at all? Just for a few minutes?"

She closes her eyes. "They can't," she says, trying to keep her voice from cracking. "He's unconscious. They're keeping him out until after the surgery."

"It's that bad?"

"They're doing the surgery tomorrow," Rayna says, barely able to get out the words. "The transplant. Everything…is just happening really fast. They checked Tandy in this afternoon to get ready. You just need to….take care of them for me, okay? And keep them from worrying themselves sick. The surgery is at 6 am, and it'll probably take 8 hours or more. I'll keep you updated."

Teddy is silent for a long minute. "I'm so sorry, Rayna. If there is anything you need, let me know. And when you're ready for the girls, I'll bring them."

"Thanks," she says quietly. "Tell the girls I love them. I have to go."

She turns to see a nurse waiting. The ones on this floor seem a little nicer than the ones in the E.R. department.

"Are you ready?" The nurse says sympathetically. "You can see him now."

_No,_ Rayna thinks. _I'm not ready for any of this. _

"Yes," she says as she shoves her phone back into her purse and turns away from the window. "I'm ready."

#######################################

She spends all night sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair next to his hospital bed, holding his hand.

"You should use that bed and get some sleep," the night nurse touches her shoulder softly, gesturing to the other room in the suite where a twin bed waits. "It's late. Tomorrow will be a long day."

She rubs her eyes and gazes at Deacon, motionless under all the medical equipment and the monotonous beeping of the monitors.

"I can't," she says. "I can't leave."

The nurse, Becca, it says on her name tag, takes his vitals, marks them on the chart, and leaves the room. A few minutes later she comes back with a cup of coffee and hands it to Rayna.

"We supply our own coffee on this floor," she says, shooting Rayna a wink. "It's much better than the sludge some of the other floors have."

Rayna manages a "thanks", and sips it gratefully before she sets it aside.

"He's lucky to have someone who loves him so much," Nurse Becca says, sitting down into the chair next to her.

"I'm the lucky one," Rayna says softly, gazing at his unmoving form. "He waited for me for a long time. And sometimes you just…well…you always think there will be time later to…fix things. And one day you wake up and everything is different."

"You know," Becca says. "I remember seeing the two of you play together at the Opry once. My mother took my sister and I, we were teenagers. Must have been about 20 years ago. The two of you onstage…you could silence a room when you sang together. People still talk. They're thrilled that you're back together."

"I don't deserve him."

"Oh now, I don't think that's true," Becca says, shaking her head. She stands up again. "But you know what," she says with a knowing smile. "He can still hear you. I bet he'd like it a whole lot if you sang to him." She patted Rayna on the shoulder one more time, and then left the room.

_Maybe she's right. _

And she knows out of all the songs they've written together, and sang onstage in the last 26 years, there's only one that they've ever kept to themselves and never shared with the world.

With a heavy-hearted sigh, Rayna leaned over and kissed Deacon's temple, and ran her finger lightly across his thick dark hair, and then she started to sing softly.

_I like the feel of your name on my lips _

_ And I like the sound of your sweet gentle kiss _

_ The way that your fingers run through my hair _

_ And how your scent lingers even when you're not there _

_ And I like the way your eyes dance when you laugh _

_ And how you enjoy your two hour nap _

_ And how you convinced me to dance in the rain _

_ With everyone watching like we were insane _

_ But I love the way you love me _

_ Strong and wild _

_ Slow and easy _

_ Heart and soul _

_ So completely _

_ I love the way you love me _

When the sun comes up through the big glass window, Rayna is still awake. Watching a new day dawn, afraid to know what it will bring. Holding the hand of the man she's loved since she was 16 years old, and praying to god when the sun goes down again she will have him back.

A little while later, two doctors and a nurse come in to take him to surgery. She kisses his cheek softly. "I love you," she whispers. "That's easy. That's all there is. You better not forget it."

She's allowed to go as far as the double doors, where they're wheeling Tandy in as well. "I love you," she says, tears burning her eyes as she hugs her sister tighter than she's ever hugged anyone. "Thank you."

"Just so you know," Tandy says, trying to lighten the mood. "If I ever need a kidney, you're first on the list. And these hospital gowns are terribly unfashionable. We need to donate some money and do something about that."

Rayna laughs, so she won't cry, and watches them wheel away two of the strongest, most amazing people she loves most in the entire world.

And then she's left with nothing to do but sit alone in another tiny windowless room and wait.

Only this time, there's no one to hold her hand.

##########################

It is hours. Hours of pacing, hours of waiting for updates, watching the minutes on the clock tick by. At noon a nurse with a cheerful smile comes out to tell her "things are going well" and Tandy is in recovery and doing fine.

"Thank you," she murmurs, breathing a slight bit easier.

At 1 o clock, the girls come racing into the waiting room, and throw their arms around her waist.

She is stunned to see them, and raises her eyes to Teddy over their heads.

"I'm sorry," Teddy says apologetically. "They were so upset, and I told them they wouldn't be able to see him or Tandy, but they insisted on being here for you, and I swear Rayna, if I wouldn't have brought them, they might have been out the door and in a cab while my back was turned."

"We wanted to hold your hand, mommy." Daphne says, her face streaked with tears. "Since Deacon can't. He always holds your hand when you're worried."

Maddie's face is so broken she can't even speak. She just lays her head against her mom's shoulder and cries, and Rayna's red and tired eyes close against her daughter's hair as she holds them tight.

"You know," she whispers. "It's okay, Teddy. I think this is just what I needed."

Teddy watches them, and he thinks about what Daphne said. Deacon can't hold her hand. So just this one time, he reaches out and holds it for him.

#################################

**6 Days Later**

Rayna is asleep in the chair next to the bed, when she feels Deacon squeeze her hand, and her eyes flutter open.

"Hey Babe," she whispers, relief spreading across her face. "Welcome back to us."

She immediately reaches for the nurse call button.

"No," he says hoarsely, "wait."

His mouth is dry as sandpaper, and he hurts all over.

"Oh, Deacon," Rayna starts to cry, and immediately starts kissing his face. They said he'd wake up soon. They took out the ventilator yesterday, and turned down some of the medication that was keeping him out cold, and they'd all been waiting anxiously.

"What the hell happened?" he whispers. The last thing he remembered they'd been in the truck on the way to that meeting.

"You've been out for six days, honey," she says, her eyes blurring with tears. "But it's done. And you're gonna be fine."

"What?" he mumbles, his blue eyes still a little confused, trying to take in everything in. "Where am I?"

"You're at Vanderbilt. The surgery is done, babe. Tandy was released yesterday. Bucky's at my house taking real good care of her."

Well that explains why he feels like he's been sawed in half and put back together wrong.

He looks around the room. There were dozens of bunches of flowers and balloons, get well cards, but his eyes settled on the evidence of the girls in the hand drawings stuck on the bulletin board. "Girls were here?"

"Yesterday," she says softly. "They wanted to see you. I couldn't hold em back any longer. Everybody's been here. Juliette and Avery….Scarlett came back from California. She'll be in this afternoon."

"Maddie's birthday?" his face falls, disappointed.

"It's tomorrow. Don't worry about it," Rayna says softly. "All Maddie wants for her birthday is her dad back home with us. Just worry about feeling better, okay?"

She'll tell him about the rest later. The scare on the third day with infection, how for an entire night she'd sat on her knees in the hospital chapel and prayed for god to let her keep him, the worries of rejection.

It hadn't all gone exactly like it was supposed to.

But that didn't matter now.

"All that matters is getting you home with us," she says, with tears in her eyes. "And I'm gonna take care of you and hover over you as much as I want, and Babe, there isn't a thing you're gonna be able to do about it."

For once, he isn't gonna argue with her as he reaches for her hand again and squeezes it hard.

"You think so," he says, his voice hoarse, but he smiles.

"You're damn right," Rayna says firmly. She leans over and presses another kiss to his mouth. "We got you better, Deacon. Now we need to get you home."

**6 months later…. **

**August **

"It was perfect, wasn't it?" Rayna says as she stands on the front porch of the cabin, shoes in her hand, bare feet, eyes closed, the fading afternoon sun warming her face and a gentle breeze ruffling the hem of her white dress and blowing her hair back.

"It sure as hell was. Perfect, Ray," Deacon says in agreement. "Just perfect. Couldn't have asked for a better day. But I can't believe you didn't want to go anywhere else for a week than this old cabin. For our honeymoon? Really?"

Rayna waves it off like it's no big deal. "We've been everywhere, Babe. This is great. Everybody thinks we're all off to Mexico or something…and here we are hiding in plain sight. Sort of. And there's no where else I'd rather be, anyway. This is us."

_This is us,_ Deacon thinks as he watches her. He thinks back to the first time he ever met her at the Bluebird. She'd had him, from that moment, from the first time he'd looked into her eyes, he'd known. She's always been his. And now, she's his wife.

She feels his gaze on her, and opens her eyes.

"What you thinkin?" Rayna says, wearing a content little smile. But she's happy too. They'd fought and waited through so much for this day. They deserved it. The wedding was more perfect than Rayna could have ever imagined. A beautiful end of summer day, with the sun high in the sky, and not a cloud in sight. Just 100 of their closest friends, and their girls wearing beautiful yellow dresses, in a gorgeous spot next to the river and a familiar stone bridge. Not a paparazzi or news reporter in sight.

It was exactly what she'd always imagined.

"I'm thinkin… I must be the luckiest man alive," Deacon says, the biggest grin she's ever seen on his face as he leans over and gives her a kiss on the cheek before going to unlock the sliding glass door.

To say they're happy is an underestimate. The cloudy days are behind, nothing but blue skies ahead. Deacon's recovery from his surgery had gone better and faster than any of them expected, and just a few weeks ago he'd received a clean bill of health.

"I'm the lucky one," she says, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her head against his chest. "You wanna watch the sunset before we go in?"

"Hell, there'll be lots of sunsets," he says, his eyes teasing her. "I've been thinking about getting you home since the moment you walked down that aisle." He scoops her up in his arms, and Rayna shrieks in surprise, laughing as she protests. "Deacon, put me down. Your scar."

"Darlin" he says, his eyes crinkling into the smile she loves. "I've been waiting since the day I bought this cabin to carry you over that damn threshold, you can bet I'm gonna do it." So he did.

"Welcome home, Deacon," Rayna says with a contented sigh as he pulls her in close and kisses her again.

"As long as I got your two arms around me, Baby," he murmurs. "I'm always home."

**Thanks so much for reading everyone, but sometimes you know where it should end, and this is the perfect place. **** I'm sure I'll be starting something new in a few weeks after the 2****nd**** half of the season starts! Hiatus is almost over! We survived!**

**The two songs I borrowed were **_**A Life That's Good**_** from Nashville and **_**I Love The Way You Love Me**_** by John Michael Montgomery**


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